Open Fund FAQs for writers: Publishing contracts, advances and agents
We receive lots of questions from writers around publishing arrangements within projects for which they wish to apply to the Open Fund and have pulled together the following advice.
Do I have a better chance of receiving support if I have a publishing contract?
In itself, the presence or otherwise of a publishing contact forms no part of our criteria. It may, however, be helpful to consider how a contract (or no contract) may help you demonstrate how you fulfil the criteria we do have.
One criterion relates to public benefit. The way that most (not all) writing reaches readers is through publication. The presence of a publishing contract may, therefore, help demonstrate that your project fulfils our public benefit criteria, because the eventual means of reaching readers is in place. This is especially important for writers with little previous track record of publishing. Writers in this position represent a higher risk for public funds because there is less evidence that their work will ultimately provide public benefit. For this reason the presence of a publishing contract may support an application by an emerging writer.
For an established author seeking support for a book under contract with an existing publisher, we would generally look for an appropriate level of publisher investment (see under Advances below).
We understand, however, that writers wishing to sustain their careers and broader creative development may apply to us for support to develop a work for offer to multiple publishers in the hope of deriving the most value from the work. Sometimes this work may be a departure from previous writing, for example a memoir by a novelist.
Do I have a better chance of receiving support if I have an agent?
Again, agent representation forms no part of our criteria. It may, however, be helpful to consider how agent representation may help you demonstrate how you fulfil the criteria we do have. The support of an established agent may help evidence the strength of your work, for example. Your agent’s track record of placing your books, or books like your own with publishers may help demonstrate public benefit in terms of likely publication in future.
Some authors provide a letter from their agent. This might support the argument made for how a proposed work will sustain your creative and career development. It might attest to the quality of the work. It might speak to the reasons your agent believes any publishing arrangement in place for the work will fulfil our public benefit criterion. This can be useful but is not essential.
If I already have a contract, how do I treat an advance in the budget?
Please include the full advance in your income table, and any agent deductions in your cost table.
I have a contract but no advance/a low advance, will this count against me?
In an ideal world, a publishing contract would offer you an advance at a level sufficient to support you during the writing of your book. If you have a contract but it does not support you to this level, please ensure you tell us your rationale for entering into the contract (for example, your publisher is a small independent with limited cash resource but a highly-developed marketing approach that is an excellent fit for your book, and demonstrable success with comparable titles).
We would generally advise against accepting a contract with no advance payment. In limiting publisher liability in the title, our assessors may consider it raises a query against the appropriateness of your means of reaching a readership, and in turn evidencing that your application meets the public benefit criterion. We do understand that some contexts (such as poetry) may operate on no-advance models, and some publishers are trialling profit-share and other mechanisms. If this is the case for your application, please tell us.
Do these notes answer your queries about publishing, contracts, advances and agents? If you have other queries, please do let us know in the comments or contact us direct.
