In nature, the coronavirus is smaller than a dust particle but its effect on both individual health and society at large is massive. The abrupt halt to all but essential businesses that has shuttered bookstores and libraries is leading to catastrophe for authors and others creators in book publishing.
Interview with Tony Bradman, Mary Rasenberger and Ian Moss
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Email | Download
Around the world, the coronavirus pandemic has marked half the planet’s population for confinement in an effort to block spread of the disease.
In this special report for CCC’s Beyond the Book, a trio of trade association leaders share with CCC’s Chris Kenneally how writers, researchers and their publishing partners are coping with the unprecedented public health and economic crisis.
From London, bestselling children’s book author Tony Bradman, who serves as chair of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, tells me that quarantine not only cuts off writers from their audiences but also from a living.
“In Britain, a lot of writers make a living from other things – activities around writing, such as school visits, festivals, events. Poets do readings. And a lot of that has been cancelled, clearly, because of the lockdown. I knew a lot of writers who were really struggling almost immediately,” he says.
In the United States, Authors Guild executive director Mary Rasenberger has directed her organization to be an online lifeline as a clearinghouse of essential information.
“We’re organizing that information and providing a one-stop place where authors can find information related to the crisis that is crucial to them. We have information about how to obtain relief from the federal assistance programs,” she says/ “We also have information about the various funds that are providing relief for writers right now – additional emergency relief. We also are offering a number of webinars and how-to videos to help authors market their books.
Ian Moss stepped into his role of CEO at STM only in late December. While he expected 2020 to be a year of change, he couldn’t have anticipated just how much.
“I was lucky to come to an organization that had refreshed itself. It had said, ‘we want to go forward in collaboration towards a world of open science, and we are going to take some big decisions to do that, and we are changing as an industry.’ Science is undergoing a massive transformation. Consumption is changing dramatically. The nature of the research community and how they are interacting and working with each other is changing, and that’s fundamentally altered their expectations on our industry,” Moss says.
For more reporting on Publishing and the Pandemic, visit CCC’s Velocity of Content blog and for archived episodes of Beyond the Book, go to beyondthebook.com.
