Participation: the Society’s constitution

A review with the 21st century in mind

Greater participation of the Society’s membership is essential if the Society is to act effectively in defence of author’s interests. That requires fewer posts nominated, more posts elected. To achieve this, a thorough-going review of the Society’s constitution is required.

The tension: a stable creative process vs a revolution in publishing

The professional situation of authors has so evolved that it is inconceivable that a late nineteenth-century establishment can be relevant to a twenty-first century situation. Before the First World War most publishers were small family affairs, the editor developed a personal interest in the author, who was left alone to pursue his interests and his passions. Publishing today is no longer such a gentlemanly affair. The creative process has probably not changed much since Homer. But the structure of publishing is no longer recognizable. The constitution of the Society of Authors must reflect these changes and the considerable threat they pose to the creative process.

A collective review, but strong leadership

The details of such a review must be hammered out in committee. Any decision to reform the Society’s constitution must be collective and should be debated by the entire Society. All reforms should respect both the traditions of the Society and the radical new professional situation faced by authors today. This will be a difficult balance to achieve. But with strong leadership it should be possible.

Strong leadership is the key to constitutional reform. It will not be found in an administration that nominates itself. The principal posts of the Society have to be elected.

The Management Committee and the Chairman

The Management Committee is, effectively, the executive of the Society of Authors. This needs to be made a reality — and the membership of the Society needs to be made aware that this is where authority resides.

The head of the Management Committee is the Chairman. Authors, publishers, booksellers and agents should know that this is a national figure who will resist commercial abuse and will defend the integrity and quality of authorship.

Giving teeth to the Committee

These two requirements — the authority of the Management Committee and the effective leadership of its Chairman — lead me to propose a revision in both the length of the term of office of committee members, and of the terms of renewal. Again, the details should be decided collectively.

The purpose of the reforms must be to give teeth to both the Committee and the Chairman in a commercial climate that is very unfavourable to authors.

I have other constitutional revisions in mind. For example, we have Regional Committees. They correspond to our own Society of Authors, France, (SOAF) which is based in Paris. These committees should play a much more active role in the national organization, so that they have a participating membership from the grassroots up. A programme should be devised to assure this.

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3 Forum messages

31 July 2011 18:30, by jdHDRQpXUqCoXovEc

Thanks for sharing. Always good to find a real eepxrt.

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8 July 2011 11:35, by Gregor Dallas

Thank you for this very informative comment which shows us just what has been going wrong inside Drayton Gardens over the last decade or so. It has lost touch with its membership at a time when it cannot afford to do so. Some have commented that I am ’attacking’ the SOA. That is certainly not the aim at all. This campaign is not a personal combat; it is coordinated with many loyal author-members in France who just feel totally sidelined in a professional world that is increasingly aggressive, profit-oriented and without the slightest commitment to quality. That may be business, but it is bad business — and in the past the Society of Authors served as a corrective. We are going to be looking for friends of the SOA, people like John Hands with a detailed knowledge of the fine traditions of the Society, who will aid us put this organization back on track so that all 8,000 members will know that they are defended in this hostile, nasty professional world. Thank you, John, for having the courage to speak up. This is just the sort of support we — all of us concerned authors — need. Thank you so much.

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8 July 2011 10:42, by John Hands

I fully support you campaign, and the reasons behind it.

In 1997 I suggested to the then General Secretary that he should not suggest high profile (and busy) authors for the Management Committee to nominate unopposed as their successors. The rightful place for such authors was the Council.

At the time the electronic revolution was just starting. One member was extremely knowledgable and had put in a lot of work, helping other members and writing articles for The Author. I thought she deserved to be, and would make an excellent member of, the Management Committee and so I nominated her.

The General Secretary phoned her, saying he thought the 4 authors nominated were the right ones for the Committee. He asked her to withdraw her nomination, offering as compensation to nominate her as a SoA representative on ALCS. I’m afraid she succumbed.

At the AGM I said that, while I was sure the 4 high-profile novelists nominated were excellent people, I wondered how representative they were of the membership in general, eg. children’s, educational, & medical authors, translators, and authors like one who had written a moving article in The Author saying that, after having published many nonbestseller books, she was unable to find a publisher.

I suggested the Society’s constitution was outdated and formally proposed that the Committee bring forward proposals to the next AGM for a more democratic election procedure. Despite the response of members indicating support for this proposal, it was kicked into the long grass by the General Secretary writing the following March to say the Management Committee "fully agreed it was important to attract writers from a wide spectrum of genres and interests, but felt it was not necessary to make major changes to a system which enables the Society to encourage some highly respected authors to give time to the Society and fellow writers."

I’m afraid it is high-profile authors who do not have a great deal of time, thus allowing the General Secretary not merely to implement, but effectively determine, the Society’s decisions. However good Mark was, 29 years in such a position of power is does not make for healthy democracy in the Society.

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