The recent removal of funding from
Planet and New Welsh Review should shake English poetry publishers and
magazines to the core. Bearing in mind that this axe has been wielded by a
Labour-run administration in Wales, it’s a stark reminder of a bleak future for
business plans that are reduced to making applications to ACE, no matter who
might win the forthcoming general election, no matter what prior relationships
might have been built. How long will such funding bodies continue to sustain ventures
where the sales figures often total less than a third of the staff costs, and
that’s before we discuss non-existent profit margins?
In this context, instead of simply
waiting for eventual, inevitable rejection, then panicking and scrambling to beg
individuals for help in a last-gasp survival bid, wouldn’t it be more sensible for
publishers and magazines to act in advance and reconsider their attitudes
towards the relative importance of sales when balancing their books (sic)? Several
excellent, self-sustaining models are already out there, after all, but such
outfits have had to commit fully to driving sales, and have taken time to build
a strong identity. It’s impossible to generate a core base of loyal customers
overnight.
Rather than viewing funding as a
necessary, permanent prop, why not see it as a temporary boost that enables
magazines and publishers to target long-term editorial and commercial independence…?
DISPLACED They called her aloof, impractical, clumsy, plain. It was, they
say, difficult for her not to fall in love.In spite, that is, of the first
coughs...
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