How can we produce books today with the same budgets as in 2001? Despite inflation? The increase in paper prices and printing costs? This is the question that Quebec and Canadian publishers are asking themselves. The Publishing Support from the Canada Book Fund (CBF), one of their pillar grants, comes for 2023-2024 with an envelope of $31 million, according to the National Association of Book Publishers (ANEL). Exactly the same amount as when the program was created 22 years ago, when the landscape had fewer publishers.
“The financial envelope for Publishing Support is back to its historic level before the pandemic – approximately $31 million,” according to calculations by ANEL and the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP). The two groups jointly estimate that the real value of aid “has decreased by almost 55% since 2001”. They are demanding refinancing of the program, already promised by governments. But the money doesn’t follow.
As there are more publishing houses today, “more than 60% of beneficiary publishers will receive a lower subsidy in 2023-2024 than last year, and this, in the midst of a period of inflation”, according to Karine Vachon, general director of ANEL.
In 2023-2024, 264 publishing houses benefited from the publishing assistance program — including 45% French-speaking publishers, mainly from Quebec. In 2012-2013, 239 publishers were funded. In a decade, 25 houses were added, for the same nest egg.
Managed by Canadian Heritage, the FLC Publishing Support, established in 2001, is an “industrial subsidy which structures the publishing sector”. It is “not based on an editorial program and an evaluation of artistic quality like subsidies from the Canada Council for the Arts, but on sales and turnover,” popularizes Gilles Herman, director of éditions du Septentrion.
More daring, riskier books
The FLC thus “supports book publishing more widely”, continues Karine Vachon, since “school works and practical books are admissible”. But not only. At the Septentrion, a house specializing in history, “we don’t do bestsellers », specifies Mr. Herman. “We make our books profitable over three to five years — it’s not sexy to say that, but we’re not focused on novelty. »
“And this subsidy helps us maintain our entire catalog, perpetuate our titles and make them live longer,” explains the director and publisher. The grants awarded range from $5,701 to $628,898. Three publishers are benefiting from it for the first time this year. The Poètes de bush editions are one of the newcomers to the FLC publishing support.
What does that change for the house founded in 2004, specializing in poetry? “We are only two employees,” says Kim Doré, who works alone full time, “and we are paid poverty wages. ” How much ? As editor and director, “$20 an hour, for weeks of more than forty hours,” shares Mme Golden.
“Our plan at Poètes de bush has been for two years to increase our subsidies to help us increase our sales, by helping to promote our books. Eventually, we want to increase our salaries or reduce our workload by hiring a third person. It’s not a huge amount that we got from the FLC, but it helps, yes,” continues the editor and poet.
At Editions de la Courte Escale, specializing in children’s literature, we believe that “this subsidy allows us to take greater editorial risks. It stabilizes our operating expenses — the salaries of the people who work with us and for us, promotional and printing costs, for example. If we are not supported by that, it is certain that certain projects, more daring, more risky, would not exist,” says director Mariève Talbot.
“Everyone thinks the book is important. The fact remains that it is impossible for us to deny inflation and the evolution of our profession and our environment,” believes Geneviève Pigeon, editor of L’Instant even and president of ANEL.
Just make books
In 2019, before the pandemic, the government evaluated the Canada Book Fund from 2012-2013 to 2017-2018. The relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of the program are evaluated very positively.
We read that “apart from time-limited funding to support Canadian Heritage or government priorities, the budget has been the same since 2001. Inflation has eroded the FLC budget and the funding available for the sector of publishing, thereby reducing the program’s ability to respond to industry needs and, therefore, its impact.
“It’s stupid, eh, but it just takes more money; that’s really just it,” Mr. Herman sums up. “Publishing support is a program that works, that has proven itself, that does not ask us to innovate or be creative all the time. It helps us make books. We are publishers. We want to continue making books, that’s it. But all costs have increased. And not this essential support. »