“Numbers are powerful”: University of Melbourne researchers on the APA workforce survey

University of Melbourne researchers Beth Driscoll, Sandra Phillips and Claire Parnell are working on the second Australian Publishing Industry Workforce Survey on Diversity and Inclusion, in conjunction with the Australian Publishers Association.

This project will measure changes from the results of the inaugural survey in 2022, which provided baseline demographic data on who works in the Australian publishing industry. The 2026 survey is currently open, and researchers are calling for responses from those who completed the survey in 2022 – as well as those who did not. Employees, self-employed people and freelancers are all eligible to participate.

“Books are important to and cherished by a diversity of readers,” Driscoll and fellow researcher Susannah Bowen wrote in the first report. “These readers are best served by an industry that is also diverse, that draws on the strengths of different perspectives and that provides sustainable, positive work cultures where people can thrive.”

Here, Driscoll, Phillips and Parnell speak about the survey and importance of representative, quantitative data for Australian publishing.

Tell me, how did the original plan to do the workforce survey come about?

The original Australian Publishing Industry Workforce Survey on Diversity and Inclusion came about through discussions between Susannah Bowen and Beth Driscoll. Susannah really cared about the diversity of books that were being published in Australia and – informed by lived experience as a woman of colour in the book industry – about the diversity of people working in Australian publishing. As a researcher of publishing and reading, Beth was aware of international studies on diversity in the UK and US publishing industries and saw a real gap in our knowledge of the Australian publishing workforce.

They spoke to the APA – which had identified diversity and inclusion as a priority – about the potential to do something together to address this gap. There were lots of ideas about initiatives for improving diversity and inclusion in the industry, but at the same time, an absence of data that could be used to identify where the greatest needs were and to track impact and change over time.

And so the idea was born: a survey that would track who worked in the Australian publishing industry, which could be repeated and benchmarked against other sectors and international publishing industries.

When you read the 2022 report, what did you think were the most significant or most surprising findings from that first survey?

For us, one of the most striking findings was the high proportion of people who were experiencing poor mental health – just over 35% of respondents reported mental health concerns, way above that reported in the UK survey around the same time.

Not so surprising, but significant, was the lack of cultural diversity, and particularly the granular detail about this: fewer than 1% of publishing professionals in 2022 were First Nations, and there was a surprisingly high number who identified as having a British cultural background.

As Sandra has noted, First Nations professionals strengthen the Australian publishing industry’s capacity to connect First Nations storytellers from the world’s oldest living cultures to contemporary and future readership across Australia and the world. Inclusion of First Nations strength and leadership is a great point of difference for the industry.

The survey also confirmed some other stats that are generally felt in the industry but were not previously measured, such as the high overall proportion of women in the industry that tapers significantly in senior roles, and the high proportion of publishing professionals who are privately educated compared to the general population.

What was also noteworthy for us was the high number of LGBTQIA+ people in the industry and, especially heartening, the high proportion of people who were open about their sexual orientation at work.

One thing we didn’t ask in the first survey that we’ve included this time is neurodiversity, so it’ll be interesting to see this data for the first time and how it fits with other changes in the data since 2022.

What has the impact of the 2022 report been since it was released? How has it been received and where has the information travelled? 

The survey has been impactful for industry and academics alike. It’s been discussed a lot across a range of media and industry publications such as Books+Publishing, Publishing Perspectives, the Conversation and blogs. It’s also been part of industry conversations: a couple of years after the report was published, for example, Editors Victoria ran an event with Susannah and Radhiah Chowdhury on “Diversity in the Australian publishing industry and how can we support under-represented editors”, drawing on this report alongside Chowdhury’s 2019–2020 Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship report.

The survey is frequently used to help contextualise a wide range of things that are happening in publishing, including what kinds of books are getting picked up and who is getting the big author deals. It also puts the Australian industry alongside the US and UK as leaders in addressing cultural inclusion in book publishing.

From our vantage point, we have also seen the impact of this project on academic research in publishing studies. The survey has been cited in international publications on disability in the work environment, as comparative data investigating biases against Northern England writers in the UK, in a piece reflecting on the free labour of book reviewing and its connections to understandings of who can afford to work in book publishing, and in Claire’s own work on how culturally diverse authors and books are treated by Amazon’s algorithms.

The survey is one part of a bigger conversation and research agenda focused on diversity and inclusion in the industry that includes both qualitative and quantitative methods working together to get a better picture.

What is the value of quantitative demographic data for the publishing industry and in collecting the same quantitative data over time?

People who care about publishing love stories and storytelling, so many of us are drawn toward qualitative data – the stories of the people who write and who work in publishing. But numbers are powerful, too, and the most effective advocacy and activism combines both.

Quantitative data shows in stark, irrefutable numbers the reality of our industry, and its impact is even more effective when it’s repeated over time. Another example of powerful quantitative data is the Stella Count, which has shown since 2012 the gender bias in Australia’s book reviewing. The Stella Count has been an important part of creating systemic change in this area, as evidenced by the most recent results (from 2019/2020) that show women authors received equal attention in book reviews for the first time in the count’s history.

For our survey, high participation matters because it shows engagement on the part of the industry. It shows that diversity and inclusion is an important issue for the Australian industry and that the people who work in this sector are committed to the industry’s future. It’s also important for us to include participants from a wide range of organisations, including freelancers, to get as complete a picture as possible.

What are your thoughts on the role of universities in working with industry in this area?

Each of us in the project team strongly believes in partnerships between academics and industry, and this partnership with the APA is a really great example of what these collaborations can accomplish. Sandra became an academic following a career in publishing as a freelancer and inhouse staff member with Aboriginal Studies Press, University of Queensland Press and Magabala, and Beth and Claire have also worked closely with industry partners over the years.

Industry is where the change happens. Academics can bring in research skills to produce high-quality, trustworthy data to inform initiatives for change. We also bring rigorous ethics processes, ensuring the industry’s data is safe and secure, as well as knowledge of the international field for benchmarking.

Is there anything you can tell us about this year’s survey so far? And what are the plans for how the information you collect will be used and shared? 

The second survey has had a fantastic start. We’ve had really useful consultation and great engagement so far with a range of industry experts. The APA’s diversity and inclusion working group, for example, has been really committed to this work. People remember the first survey, which is great, and we are aware of the responsibility we have, being part of something big and meaningful for the industry.

So far, the survey is tracking well (it’s been open for a few weeks and will be open until 30 April). We’ve had a good number of participants respond, but we could always use more! The more responses we have, the clearer picture we get of the industry as it is now. So please do fill it in if you work in Australian publishing!

Our plans are to disseminate the findings through a public, open-access report, as well as media articles and an academic article. We’ll also be presenting preliminary findings at the BookUp Research Day on 23 July.

Beth Driscoll is professor in publishing and communications and deputy dean academic in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on contemporary book cultures across two main domains: socio-cultural practices of reading and the global publishing industry.

Sandra Phillips is professor in publishing and communications in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, specialising in Indigenous writing, editing and publishing. She is also associate dean Indigenous in the Faculty of Arts, providing faculty-wide strategic leadership, as well as designing and leading the implementation of the faculty’s Divisional Indigenous Development Plan.

Claire Parnell is lecturer in digital publishing in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her research focuses on the platformisation of publishing and cultural inclusion in the book sector. She is co-organiser for the BookUp Research Day.

More information about the survey – and the link to complete it – is available via this link. 

Category: Features