Alison Tweed

Alison Tweed is Chief Executive at Book Aid International. Before this, she worked for 25 years in international educational publishing. Since joining the charity, she has grown its book provision programme to over one million books a year and has launched a range of new, innovative projects and partnerships.

Always looking to connect her books to something happening in her life, Alison’s most recent reads, Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse and Mrs Dalloway, were prompted by a recent holiday to Cornwall. Willing to read “everything from a cornflake packet to an encyclopedia”, Alison has also recently read Sam Harvey’s Orbital, George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, and a selection of John Clare’s poetry. 

"Our vision is to give people who would otherwise not have access to books the opportunity to read."

Can you tell us about what Book Aid International does?

Our vision is to give people who would otherwise not have access to books the opportunity to read. This could be due to poverty and the lack of money to buy books, or conflicts where people have been displaced and libraries have been destroyed. Our support can look very different depending on location and need – we work in refugee camps and areas of conflict, we support NGOs such as PEN Ukraine, we support public libraries and access to books in communities across Africa – and we do all this by working with our international partners and over 100 publishers here in the UK.

We also work with partners to set up children's corners in public and community libraries, and work with schools to create school libraries. Where schools don't have the space for a library, we can create what we call a Discovery Book Box, a collection of books in a robust box that children can access even if they don't have a school building. In Cameroon, many displaced children were having lessons under trees, so the book boxes effectively acted as a portable library.

Our partners tell us the kinds of books that they need for their projects and programmes, and we then make a selection from our collections and send them on. Publishers offer us inventories and we then consolidate the books in our warehouse, currently in Camberwell. These books may be overstocks from warehouse stocktakes, returns from bookshops or copies from office clearouts. I think the amount of pulping that goes on is still a bit of a publishing ‘dirty secret’, and despite the move to more sustainable printing, a lot of books are still printed in bulk and often there are many, many left at the end of the day. We donate around 1.2 million books a year, sent in 40-50 consignments to up to 30 different partners in each of the countries that we support. Last year, we donated about 1.35 million books to 23 countries.

Day-to-day, we spend most of our time focused on fundraising and building awareness about the work we do. We're entirely voluntarily funded; we don't get any government or institutional funds. On average, we raise just under £3,000,000 a year, from individuals, legacies, trusts and foundations, and some publishers and corporate supporters. I'm always amazed at how supportive everyone is. It's very heartening that people believe in what we do and put their money behind their beliefs.

What is your role within the organisation?

I'm the plate spinner. It's my job to lead the charity and work closely with the board of trustees, who oversee our strategy and governance. I direct the charity’s strategy, deliver our operating plan and make sure our budgets balance. I’ve been at Book Aid International for 12 years, and my main responsibility is leading the charity and ensuring that it is delivering on its charitable objectives. When I joined, it had just come out of losing government funding, and had been downsized and repositioned. It was ready for growth and with some very generous funding, particularly from players of the People’s Postcode Lottery, we were able to build the charity again. Over time, we have expanded into more countries, started more programmes and sent more books. I think perhaps I was brought in from the publishing industry because of that growth mindset. That's what you do when you're in publishing: you're always looking for growth and profit and new books.

As Chief Executive, I’m the face of the charity so I get involved in all sorts of things. I think it's so important to get out there, meet our partners, and spend time with the people who receive and read our books. I've had such incredible experiences in this role, visiting tiny community libraries, remote schools, prisons and refugee camps across the world. It’s a huge privilege to meet the people who eventually read the books, and to see the books that have travelled from our Camberwell warehouse to a tiny school in the middle of rural Kenya or Sierra Leone. It's a bit of a goosebumps moment to hear people’s appreciation for the books, the publishers and what we do.

There's a lot of pressure now in this post-Covid world – we can all connect so much more easily and do a lot more remotely – but nothing really beats meeting people, seeing where they work and live, and just building those relationships. There's pressure to travel less to minimise our carbon footprint, but you can't really replace that experience. I'm absolutely supportive of hybrid working: it's fun and suits a lot of people, but you lose that camaraderie. Suddenly, you're not just chatting over a desk and it does create a different kind of rigidity where you lose the spontaneity. I think we all recognise these things and there are many conversations happening about it but ultimately we'll find some sort of balance. I think we’ll have to, certainly for new business development and developing new partnerships. How can we work more sustainably and remain very conscious of our carbon footprint, but not lose that important connection?

It's so important to love what you do and I've been very fortunate. I don't love every day or every hour of every day but overall, I feel very privileged to have had the experience I had.

"How can we work more sustainably and remain very conscious of our carbon footprint, but not lose that important connection?"

You worked in international publishing for over 25 years – how did you find the move to the charitable sector of the industry?

I was publishing books for Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East at Macmillan, but most of my focus was on Africa, so I knew about Book Aid International. Macmillan was and remains to this day a big supporter of our work. My role was made redundant and the timing coincided with the search for a new Director, and I thought, that has just got to be the best job! After working in commercial publishing, the idea of working for a charity that donated books sounded absolutely amazing, so I applied.

I was very surprised when I was actually offered the role because I had no background in not-for-profit. After a very long time in one organisation, I was excited about it, and it was nerve wracking. Fortunately, there was enough there that it felt familiar, with an awful lot of parallels, but I guess the main difference is that I am now working for a cause and not being driven by sales. I've been very fortunate to have had a career where I've seen both sides of publishing. When I go to book fairs, I have to remind myself that I'm not a publisher anymore, I'm a charity leader. But the knowledge and experience I gained at Macmillan has really informed what I do now at Book Aid International, and has helped me understand how publishers think, how they might perceive our work and what might encourage them to support us.

The charity was well-established and well-run, with clear ethos and values, but I could see there was a lot more that could be done. I had to learn to work with the board and learn quite a lot about charity governance, but I was, and am, very well supported by the trustees and a great team. There's a structure, there's a hierarchy, but I've always felt very much that everybody is equally important. The person in the warehouse packing the books is just as vital as the Chief Exec. Without that person, nothing goes out the door.

How do you think the book industry has changed since you started in the industry?

I've had the luxury of staying connected with publishing without the stress and strain of being in an industry undergoing such seismic change and challenge. When I joined Macmillan, I was given a secretary with an electric typewriter, a memo pad with a piece of carbon paper and a filing cabinet. If I wanted to contact any of our African offices, I would actually have to leave the building, go into another building and send a Telex, and then wait three days for the reply. How we ever did anything is an absolute mystery! The creative process until recently has remained broadly similar, but that, of course, is going to undergo huge changes with AI. I can't even imagine the kind of impact it's going to have on content creation. And of course, the whole migration to digital content and digital printing all happened more at scale after I left publishing, so it has changed hugely. 

One of the questions I was asked when I joined was, ‘What will happen to Book Aid International when nobody reads print anymore?’ That question has not kept me up at night. Print publishing is absolutely thriving and digital has not replaced print for children and young people. With children, reading is so much about the whole experience: the physical, the tactile, the visual, and really sharing books. I read to all my children until I couldn’t possibly anymore, and they have such strong memories of those times. That's what digital really can't do. I think I can say that without sounding like a dinosaur because I think there are a lot of people now recognising that. It's interesting to see publishers making so much more effort with production value – creating beautiful jackets and using lovely paper. The experience of a print book is very special, and when I talk to friends who read a lot on Kindles or their phones, they do say they don't have that recall of books that they read digitally. And who wants to snuggle up at night with a phone? I certainly don't. 

"The person in the warehouse packing the books is just as vital as the Chief Exec. Without that person, nothing goes out the door."

You’ve launched a range of new, innovative programmes and partnerships during your time at Book Aid International. Are there any particular experiences that were particularly special to you or you felt had the most impact?

I think it's the cumulative impact for me: seeing how the charity has grown over time and built on the experiences and learnings of how to create and build an effective programme. I’m also so proud of the growth in the number of countries and the number of partners that we support. We've done a huge amount of work developing relationships with NGOs and grassroots community-based organisations. We've now got 196 partners worldwide. This expansion just gives us so much more scope to work.

When Book Aid International turned 60 years old in 2014, we launched a campaign to set up 60 children's corners across Africa. These children's corners will be familiar to people who still have a local library but this is not necessarily the case in some of the African libraries. We raised the funds to do it and that campaign ran for three years. It was very transformational for me as it was a very definable intervention that I can look back on now, 10 years later, and still see those children's corners operating. One of the challenges with project work in charities is sustainability and creating interventions that not only last, but then have people who can take it on and reproduce it elsewhere. Since 2014, we've built on that project and created school library outreach from those children's corners and a whole raft of other projects, delivered alongside our partners. It's not just about donating books; it's also about creating more sustainable change that then empowers people to take their knowledge and do more.

On a personal level, there is a small incident that I will always remember. Often when we go into local libraries, it’s the middle of the day, so they can be quite empty. I went into a library in Malawi and there were two boys, aged about 9 or 10, sitting in the children's section, reading books. I asked the librarian why they weren't at school, and the librarian said, ‘Well, they arrived at school too late and they wouldn't let them into the classroom so they came to the library.’ It still gives me goosebumps to think about. They obviously couldn't go home because they were in trouble and they chose to go to the library. Often we get introduced to some of the readers, but these boys just wanted to read their books – they didn't want to talk to me! That is a very sweet memory. There have been lots of grander moments, but seeing that engagement and watching children wanting and then choosing to go into a library under their own initiative… That's exactly what we're trying to do. We’re giving children access to the books that they want to read and creating that engagement with reading. In the end, that's what it's all about.

What else could publishers and organisations within publishing do to support reading for pleasure both in the UK and globally?

If publishers don't work to help create the next generation of readers, they will not have a market. They have a vested interest in going beyond a promotion of books to a broader, more generous promotion of reading, working as an association and working together to think beyond sales and profit. I'm very impressed with the work that the PA and many other organisations are doing to bring the industry together.

There's a massive imperative to promote reading. The latest YouGov survey said that 40% of adults haven't read a single book in the last year – that is jaw dropping. And it's generational, isn't it? If children don't see their parents reading, they are going to be less inclined to read themselves. I remember going to a school in Ghana and sitting in the teachers’ staff room and they were saying, ‘Oh, the children, they don't read.’ I said, ‘Well, what do you read?’ They said, ‘Oh, well we don't read either. We don't have any books to read.’ I said, ‘Right, next consignment, we're sending you books because modeling is important.’ As a charity leader, I would say one thing publishers can do is support literacy. Charities do their work and we are well supported but publishers can always do more. I think that taking a much more holistic, longer term view of the way the market's going, supporting and investing in school libraries, getting that younger generation of readers into that reading habit… it will all help. Internationally, I think there is a huge amount the publishers can do through NGOs – working with them can create access and, very simply, make books available.

There are so many different channels that are available and can be exploited now to get people interested in reading – whether people come in through an audio channel then discover print and enjoy that, or the other way around. I find the way audio has developed, done so well and created a different way of delivering books and reading really interesting. I would say I'm agnostic towards it: people, particularly young people, engaging with the written word is the most important thing, but overall I think there is definitely an imperative to go beyond a promotion of authors and promotion of books to a promotion of reading.

"I think there is definitely an imperative to go beyond a promotion of authors and promotion of books to a promotion of reading."

Do you think there’s anything people can do on an individual level?

There are opportunities at every level. You could be creating a book club to share reading experiences and bring more people in at a grassroots level. There are a lot of organisations looking for volunteers to read with people who can't read themselves. I think there's lots that people can do, whether through volunteering, peer support or working as a school reading assistant.

Talking about what you're reading is also one of the most powerful things. You started this interview by asking me what I'm reading and that's probably one of the most important things that we can all do. It can be a very private, intimate thing. Your choice of books perhaps says more about you than your choice of what to watch on Netflix. You're lost in the world of a book so it feels much more personal because of the fear of judgement and being put on the spot but sharing what you're reading and talking about it is an important message and an important part of what you do and who you are. I wonder if we're losing that a bit. I think there’s that fear of getting into a conversation with somebody who says, ‘I read that. What did you think?’ and perhaps they have a better memory of the book or engaged with it on a different level. I think we fear being a bit caught out when it comes to talking about books.

And then there’s the element of gender. I think perhaps women are more confident talking about their reading choices. How many book clubs are for men? How are men reading? Organisations like the Women’s Prize are really interested in getting more men reading books written by women. When we say ‘let's get people reading more’, we are talking about all genders and all ages, but creating that environment is very challenging. Consciously, I'm not thinking about gender when I choose a book, but maybe subconsciously I am – there are still plenty of female writers who don't use their full name or use their initials and really, if we want to get more boys reading, their dads have to read, so what are they picking up?

However much is done to promote reading, it will never be enough – you're never going to engage everybody. So the more initiatives there are, the better. The more noise we can create from all of us working together, the better. We should approach it a bit like climate change – the change on a bigger, corporate level has to happen, of course, but you can also switch the light off to make a difference too, as I tell my husband every night when he leaves the study light on…

"If you've got the energy, one person can make a big difference. Doing anything through a sense of duty will never be sustainable."

What advice would you give to people looking to make a difference in publishing?

Identify something that you think needs changing and that you can make an impact on, and then get out and champion it. I do see a lot of young people who are very active and doing a lot within their organisations to effect change. In the past we have had ‘publisher ambassadors’, people within various publishing houses who advocate for us and the work we do. There was one very good, very active young woman who really loved what we did so she made sure that we were always the charity of choice for cake bakes and book sales. She encouraged people to do events for us and promoted us within the organisation and made such a difference to our profile – and that was just one person. If you've got the energy, one person can make a big difference. Doing anything through a sense of duty will never be sustainable. There are plenty of causes to champion, but ask yourself ‘what do I feel really passionate about?’ and then follow that.

It’s been a journey for me. At Macmillan, I was very conscious of the need and I felt like what I was doing was very worthwhile, but it’s very enabling to be in a role where the power, the network and the funding to do something are at your fingertips. I've loved my time at Book Aid International and working for a cause. We are the people in the middle who make it happen and ultimately connect the publishers and the money with the partners, so I would never overstate our role. You just have to have that sense that you are making a difference, or that you’re supporting the people who are really making the difference.

Can you tell us about another woman in publishing who inspires you?

Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi is an amazing woman. She has a publishing imprint called Kalimat, based in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Her father, Sheikh Al-Qasimi, is a huge promoter of reading and literature, and she follows very much in that vein. She has set up her own Arabic children's publishing imprint, producing lovely books in Arabic for children, which deal with modern issues. She has a foundation aimed at supporting children who are victims of displacement and war. She was president of the IPA for a term and did a huge amount to promote local publishing, and she also set up PublisHer, which is an organisation which supports women in publishing globally.

She is somebody who has been active on so many fronts to support publishing, and she is very engaged with getting more children reading. While she is obviously from a very privileged background herself, she is very aware of children who don't have access to books and is actively trying to make things happen. She's such a gracious, generous person and very good at connecting people and has a huge amount of respect in the industry. As somebody who has worked across so many different sectors and is so committed to publishing and getting people reading, she's definitely my heroine. I think she's fantastic. We need more people like her.

The FLIP are proud supporters of independent bookshops and are an affiliate of Bookshop.org. If any of our recommendations take your fancy, we'd be so grateful if you click through our links directly to make a purchase as we earn a small commission - all of which goes back into bringing The FLIP's mission to life and to allow us to keep bringing you the content you want to see.