I read in The Bookseller yesterday that nearly 2,500 new publishers have set up in the last year. And in the first seven months of this year around 114,000 new titles have been published.

http://www.thebookseller.com/?pid=8&did=17029

It seems, reading between the lines of this article, (and one or two rumours I've heard) that the trend is towards large publishers using smaller ones to take the chance on new titles and writers. Almost, in fact, using them as a slushpile.

Has anyone else noticed this? Got any views?

Dee

Could be. Though 'new publishers' is a figure derived by the ISBN allocators, so it can include tiny companies set up to self-publish a corporate history or a local free directory, etc. etc. I'd put money on only a handful of that 2,400 having anything to do with the kind of thing that WW's about.

It's easy for us to forget that fiction is a minute part of the book market in financial terms, even though it has what other industries would regard as an unnaturally high profile nonetheless.

Emma

I'm sure you’re right, Emma, but I still like to think that it’s a trend away from the dominance and restrictions of the big publishing houses.

Dee

I hope so. It may partly be the rise in Arts Council subsidy publishing. Publishers like Comma, and even Seren who are relatively big boys, wouldn't exist without it.

I'm waiting for the day when London has a nicely-subsidised publisher. There have been moments when it feels as if every area of the country has competitions and publishers and bursaries for new writing except London.

Emma

Should taxpayers' subsidise 'new writing'? What's in it for them? Isn't it better for them to buy books of their free will?

Joe

<Added>

Oops - delete 'greengrocer's apostophe' - taxpayers, not taxpayers'.

Yes, taxpayers should subsidise new writing, because that's where the innovation is. By definition, new writing - or any new art - is too different from what has gone before to sell well enough to pay the people involved a living wage. But if there is no new art, there's nothing to help art as a whole grow and change to reflect a growing and changing world.

It's either taxpayers, or back to the private patrons of the 18th Century, who were even more hit and miss in what they'd support. The equivalent now would be corporate patrons, and I don't fancy that much either. At least arts councils have some practitioners sitting on them.

Emma

A word of caution , please ensure that these publishers are legitimate and not going to take money from you and fail then to promote and push your book.

Recently on here we heard of the antics of and demise of one such publisher, who as sure as eggs are eggs, will raise is head again in the publishing business, because that's what he apparently has done before.

But otherwsie it is good news that there would appear to be a resurgence in the publishing industry.

But why should taxpayers fund innovation in the arts, and to what extent? And who should they fund? Also, I'm not sure I'm particularly confident that arts councils with practitioners sitting on them are necessarily going to be good judges of what's worthy of support. Art sponsored this way seems quite creepy to me ... (but that's just personal prejudice, I admit).

I don't have great confidence in leaving it all to the market, either, given the way things are. Oh dear, this fence is playing havoc with my hernia.

Perhaps we could have a lottery whose takings were dedicated to new writing and one for film, and dance, and music, and whatever. Then those who want to, can plug the gap in funding. But decisions would still have to be made about how the money would be distributed, and I guess the same old network of cronies would handle that. Fine if you're already 'in with the in-crowd', but if you're an outsider, you may well remain so, no matter how innovative your writing proved to be (assuming 'innovation' to be some kind of good in itself).

Joe

I don't think society has a duty to support anyone who calls themselves a writer, but societies need and want art, and art has to experiment, while the market will always tend towards the safe and known. If the choice of who decides what to support of the unsafe and unknown is between The Earl of Philistine, Philistine Products plc and Philomena Philistine the well-known author, I'd prefer the latter. At least she may have some idea of what writing's about on its own terms. Plus, she can be given a fixed-term contract, and then we can have Philip Less-Philistine for three years. Or even one of ourselves - it can be done.

Emma

art has to experiment

I really wish it would, judging by the yawn-a-minute dross carpeting the Bookers this year.

JB

Ho hum, trouble with a lottery, JoPo, is that in practice that's just another way for those with least money to subsidise the arts, while fantasising their way out of poverty. Better the taxpayers, especially if we tax the rich. That way the Earl of Philistine has to pay without also getting to choose the art! Win win situation there I think...

Yep, VM, you are right 100% about lotteries being a tax on the poor. I've tried to think of a way the poor could get to choose which projects to support, but I can't think of any.

Joe

I quite see the insidiousness of selling dreams, to which anyone in difficult circumstances is particularly vulnerable, especially anyone who was badly taught Maths (which is most people) and can't calculate odds. It's immoral of the government to trade on it. On the other hand, and at the risk of sounding like a proper little Tory (scary thought), no one HAS to buy a lottery ticket.

Personally, I think that all lottery tickets ought to have a health warning, stating the average odds for winning the jackpot, and of winning at all. Preferably in a form that makes some kind of sense to our probability-illiterate population, such as: 'Imagine flying in a helicopter over Wembly Stadium. Now imagine flying over 20 of them. One person sitting in one of those Wembleys is going to win the jackpot. Still want to buy a ticket?'

Emma

I've seen calculations that show there's more chance of being wiped out by a falling asteroid than winning the lottery. The trouble is, no matter how you dress up odds (even 14 million-to-1 odds), you still get the response "you've got to be in it to win it" from some people. As statements go, this one is perfectly accurate, but the people who say it then go on to convince themselves that, because they're in it, they're bound to win it one day. Add to that the idea that some of the money is "going to a good cause", and you have two reasons why many of the punters switch off their common sense before buying a ticket.

Going back to the idea of subsidies, I agree with the general point that funding for arts should come from some form of taxation. Maybe a fairer way than either punitive taxes or lottery funding would be to have some kind of tax on those artforms that are low-risk enough to be making lots of money. So, for example, blockbuster movies or best-selling novels could incur some kind of "community spirit tax" that gets distributed to more risky ventures. An even better ploy, psychologically, might be to exempt from such a tax those publishers, film makers, etc. who already sink a significant proportion of profits (say, more than 20%) from low-risk arts into higher-risk arts.

Alex

I suppose that since the profits of blockbusters are taxed, and cinemas pay rates, and some of those rates and taxes go into arts funding, that already happens in a sense.

How about a 5p levy on every copy of the Da Vinci Code? That should solve third world debt in a week or two.

Emma