Open Fund FAQs for publishers
We receive lots of questions from publishers about our Open Fund and have pulled together the following FAQs to assist publishers thinking about applying. Do let us know if there’s anything you would like to know that we’ve missed.
I want to set up as a publisher and I need funds. Can I apply to Creative Scotland’s Open Fund?
No organisation — including publishers — may apply to our Open Fund for general operating overheads or start-up costs. For these you need to look to enterprise grants, loan finance, or other means of raising capital such as crowdfunding. We would recommend you make contact in the first instance with Business Gateway for advice. Membership of Publishing Scotland, the Independent Publishers’ Guild and the Society of Young Publishers are other ways to access support from knowledgeable networks of publishers (n.b. despite the name, the Society of Young Publishers actually has no upper age limit for membership, but bars those with 10+ years of experience in the industry from sitting on its committees).
So what can I apply for?
If you’re set up and publishing, distributing your titles through recognised channels, you may apply for support towards the costs of publishing specific titles or a group of specific titles. In order to evidence that your project meets our creative/artistic strength criterion, we seek to understand what makes the work special.
How can I evidence the creative or artistic strength of the work?
To evidence the strength of the work we want to know what the writer/artist has to offer that is new, different or developmental, and what you have to offer them. Please ensure you tell us as much as you can about the writer and the writing, and how you intend to publish it. You may wish to supply samples from manuscripts and cite previous publications of theirs/yours as evidence.
The work must be creative in nature; we cannot support academic, journalistic or reference work.
Can I apply for commercial titles?
You may apply for any creative literary work but in the case of demonstrably commercial titles, it is worth considering how you might demonstrate that your application meets our public benefit criteria. If an established, financially viable market exists for work it may be difficult to argue that public funds are well utilised in supporting it.
Can I apply for backlist titles or reissues of Out of Print (OOP) work?
We consider costs associated with the management of your backlist ineligible for the Open Fund as ongoing organisational operating costs.
While reissues of newly acquired OOP titles are not ineligible, the benefits to the ecology are generally less and, in the context of high demand on our funds, we are rarely able to prioritise applications for such for support. In some exceptional cases there may be a broader cultural rationale such as a centenary or specific deficit in work available affecting the ecology more broadly. If this is the case, we would encourage you to discuss your proposed application with us ahead of time for advice.
What is expected in terms of readership?
We expect work to be made available to readers through established distribution models and professional trade outlets, to reach as broad a readership as possible — essentially engaging with a financially viable market. What is appropriate to a specific work or form in this regard may differ and we are happy to advise.
In addition to distribution, we would hope to see promotional plans and costs in your budget to ensure targeted readerships will be made aware of the work in question. This relates to the public benefit criteria of our funding, both to the author in terms of their profile and career, but also the general public as readers in having culturally valuable literature readily available.
How do I treat sales in my application?
Your application should show projected sales revenue in its income table for the project period. In reporting via your End of Project Monitoring Form, you may close off sales either at the end of this period, or upon sell-through of your first run, whichever occurs first.
In the event your sales income is significantly higher than anticipated and your project shows a surplus (profit) as a result, our processes allow for an appropriate portion of our grant to be claimed back.
I don’t pay myself — is this an issue?
This is of concern for two reasons. Firstly, we are committed to fair pay and expect any organisation applying for funding to pay its people appropriately. Secondly, a business model which does not turn over enough to meet costs may not be indicative of sales at a level sufficient to demonstrate that your publishing reaches readers, thereby fulfilling our public benefit criteria.
I can’t afford to pay author advances. What do I do?
Creative Scotland is committed, through any activities we support, to ensure that artists and those professionals working in the creative community are paid fairly and appropriately for their time and effort. In a publishing context, this means that we expect to see a meaningful advance. We understand the cashflow challenges of smaller publishers and appreciate that you may be able to offer only a conservative advance without our support; we anticipate, however, that an application to the Open Fund will include proper provision for paying the author/artist during the period of creation of the work.
An author I wish to work with applied for support and was advised that the project was ineligible as it was considered a self-publishing project. Can you advise?
Our definition of self-publishing includes projects in which books are published at the author’s cost. These are sometimes described as ‘partnership’ models. Regardless of whether the author meets costs in full or contributes in part, pays personally or has the support of another funder, and whether or not the publisher has a broader list, we cannot support these costs.
Do these notes answer your queries about applying for the Open Fund as a publisher? If you have other queries, please do let us know in the comments or contact us direct.
