Late last year I went looking for the 2024 winner of the Small Press Network’s Book of the Year (BOTY) Award, originally called the MUBA (Most Underrated Book Award). It is/was an annual award highlighting ‘authorial and publishing excellence by small and independent publishers’, and is/was open to any book released by an SPN member during the previous calendar year. It aimed to provide some of the recognition and promotional opportunities for publishers and authors that the big awards facilitate. I didn’t always post on this award but I always checked it out.
But, I was surprised and disappointed to find no mention of the 2024 award. Instead I found articles suggesting that the sponsoring organisation, the Small Press Network, was on the brink of collapse.
I wrote a post back in 2011, on SPUNC (or, Small Press Underground Networking Community) as it was initially called until – as with their award – they renamed it to something with a little more gravitas, to the inoffensive SPN! It was formed in Melbourne in 2006 and its aim was “to promote independent publishing and support the principle of diversity within the publishing industry as a vital component of Australian literary culture”. It seemed to be a wonderful organisation, with an information-rich website (no longer available as far as I can tell) and an active Facebook page (but inactive since March last year.)
So, what happened? Unfortunately, most of the information sources, like Books+Publishing and ArtsHub, are paywalled, but I did glean some information from ArtsHub. On 22 October 2024, Thuy On penned a news report headlined “Small Press Network to terminate unless new board is formed” followed by the news that the organisation was at risk of ceasing operations within the month. The full article is paywalled. However, the article’s publicly available intro said that SPN had emailed its members and supporters that the current Board would be wound up, but there was an option for the community to reform a new Board. Failing that the organisation would cease to exist. SPN’s email apparently cited “numerous reasons” for all this, but those are presumably hidden behind the paywall.
Around the same time, on 17 October, writer, author advocate and presenter, Anna Featherstone wrote a brief blog post titled “Australia’s Small Press Network (SPN) to shutter”. She writes that she’s loved attending SPN conferences over the years “for some incredible nuggets of wisdom and plenty of publishing and book stats” so was sad to hear that it was “officially winding down”. “Totally understandable”, she writes, “but still a loss for the local publishing industry who aren’t the Big Five”. She then quotes SPN’s then board chair, Anna Solding, as saying the the Board had “worked hard to find feasible ways to make SPN financially tenable again but have not found any viable way to achieve this”. Featherstone concludes her post with links to her highlights posts from the 2021, 2022 and 2023 conferences.
The next piece of information I found was also at ArtsHub. Dated 13 December and written by George Dunford, a writer and digital content expert, its headline is “The future of Australian small press”. It continues that the pausing of the SPN was seen by many as “a death knell for independent publishing” but that it had a new Board and “looks set to again champion small press in 2025”. It says that former SPN General Manager Tim Coronel had said that SPN ‘saw “a big membership boost during COVID” as many writers thought it would be a great time to start self-publishing’ … and then we go behind the pay wall. Doh!
So, with the website gone and Facebook inactive, I can find out nothing more, but I do hope it survives, that it revives those sites, and offers its BOTY award again.
Does anyone know anything more?
Whispering Gums 
I do not (of course); but you post has generated a seriously irritated comment from me regarding the audio version of the last of the 3 Dinuka McKenzie crime novels – which I have been reading because of you.
In “Tipping Point” the reader, a young woman named Elizabeth Brennan (yes, I want to out her ignorance !) is heard, I think three times, to say “veil” when the word she is mispronouncing is “vale” – used as in your post title.
It never ceases to astound me that readers actually … ahh … go to press ( ! ) with horrible errors like this one. Apparently, people recording audiobooks are no longer subject to producers’ oversight. Makes me boil.
Sorry, ST – I’ve done it again. 😦
But there is a connection! And an interesting one to me who regularly growls (at the TV in particular) about pronunciation – so that would irritate me too MR.
But, now I have you, what do you think of the books? That you are on the third suggests you have liked them?
Enjoyed the first one; couldn’t get into the second one and abandoned it; am enjoying again this last one. I shall go back to the middle one: I started on it too soon after finishing the first, and was seized with temporary boredom by the protagonist’s self-doubt and her dysfunctional family.
I had my own, after all. :
That’s interesting MR – sounds like it might be worth retrying the second one. On the other hand there is something called second book syndrome … authors can struggle (or so I understand!)
I believe some organizations are not allowed to operate without a board, but I can’t remember which kind. I suppose that isn’t terribly helpful. It wasn’t until I was over 30 that I learned that it almost always costs money (a good deal) to be on a board, so it’s not that people just don’t want to step up, but possibly that they cannot afford to.
That’s really interesting Melanie and is not something I’m aware of. The boards I’m aware of are either voluntary positions – usually community or charity organisations – or are paid ones. That is board members receive a fee. It’s rarely a salary but an amount – a sitting fee – to recognise the time and work involved in being board members. I’m not aware of people in Australia paying money to be on a board. I just googled it after your comment and found that it does sometimes happen and I think the responses were American. However I’ll be interested to hear if anyone comments on this issue regarding other countries. (For the record, I was on a school board – for an individual school – for years. We were definitely not paid. And we definitely didn’t pay either except with our time! This was separate from what you call the PTA and we tend to call the P & C – Parents and Citizens Association – which primarily did fundraising but would also feed information to the Board. I would attend P&C meetings to gain an understanding of how parents were feeling about school management or what they thought about any issues we were considering.)
Think a lot of arts boards are unpaid particularly smaller organisations. That was the case for SPN which makes it hard to attract good people and for them to make it part of their job. I’ve been on the boards of Going Down Swinging and Express Media which were both great experiences but not paid.
Thanks for sharing the article. A lot has happened since then – including the Text news – so I think SPN is probably more important than before. I’m not sure what the progress is on their website or Facebook group but the article did include an email if you wanted to get in touch.
Thanks George . You make good points re unpaid boards. I don’t really have much in terms of getting in touch, but I will try to watch out for them.
PS. Paying to be on a Board seems to me to go against the essential principles behind what a Board is, which I see as offering fair and knowledgeable advice for running an organisation based on your skills and knowledge? Paying money to go on a board suggests you might then expect some rights to sway decisions in ways that suit you?
My understanding is that being on a board, or several boards, gives your resume a bit of something extra, but the part where people pay money to be on boards does feel a little sticky. For instance, I know someone who was (is?) on a board for a civic theater, and that person is in almost every play. Now, are they just a huge theater lover, or do the directors want to keep this person happy?
Yes, overall same here … board membership can be good for your resume, though probably in most cases by the time you are asked to be on a board your resume is good! The main issues re boards here are composition (heavily white male) and political stacking on boards appointed by the government (meaning cronies get appointed – which suggests kudos is attached to being on a board – and that people with relevant skills do not. This issue of expertise is critical for specialist organisations like cultural institutions – museums, libraries, archives, for example).
Hi Sue, it all does sound very confusing and unfortunate. I received the following from Text Publishing today: We are delighted to announce that we have signed an agreement under which Text Publishing will join Penguin Random House, the world’s largest trade publishing house.
Are things are tough in Australia’s publishing world?
Thanks very much Meg … yes, I got that email too … things are probably always tough in Australia’s publishing world, but I wouldn’t be surprised whether the cost-of-living crisis is affecting it too. It seems that businesses that survived the pandemic – I guess with government help – are now struggling? Let’s hope that Text, in this new guise, will survive.
Penguin has survived a long time. The question is whether it will retain the Text imprint and style as promised in this agreement. I think of Virago which was sold to a company and then that company was sold to another, but it still survives with its focus on women’s voices though I don’t think is still has its distinctive look which is a shame. I loved the recognition, and I love the recognition Text has – at least with its classics! Will they continue?
I was going to mention the news about Text Publishing as well (when something about Australian publishing makes it into our news feeds, I figure it’s very big news). The libraries in Toronto have a lot of Text’s books on their shelves (in a branch with a lot of them, like the North York branch, you can pluck off a big stack of them just by recognising their spines on the shelves without even trying). The Virago books had already rejigged their marketing I believe, before they were purchased (by Hachette, I think, at least that’s how we get them in Canada now?) but I still miss their apples and green spines too.
Wow, that’s in interesting Marcie although I suspect because it’s Penguin Random House involved that gives us a bit more international interest? I love though that they are recognisable to you and presumably to other readers – it does mean that significant numbers of their books are around in your neck of the woods.