Book Publishing Support: Block Grants

Deadline

1 December

If this date falls on a weekend or statutory holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day. Your completed application and all support material must be postmarked on or before the deadline.

The Canada Council for the Arts will not accept incomplete applications, applications postmarked after the deadline date, or those sent by fax or email.

Program Description

As part of fulfilling its mandate to foster the production and enjoyment of the arts in Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts provides financial assistance to Canadian publishers to offset the costs of publishing Canadian trade books that make a significant contribution to the development of Canadian literature. This assistance is made available through Emerging Publisher Grants (for emerging publishers) and Block Grants (multi-year and annual grants for established publishers).

Book publishers receiving Block Grants are also eligible to apply for Translation Grants, Author Promotion Tour assistance or grants for the publication of art books. Information on these program components is available on the Canada Council’s website or from the Writing and Publishing Section.

Eligibility

Block Grants provide funding to established professional book publishers with an ongoing publishing program that includes at least 16 eligible titles (see Title Eligibility, below).

All Canada Council for the Arts programs are accessible to Aboriginal artists or arts organizations, and artists or arts organizations of diverse cultural and regional communities of Canada.

Publisher Eligibility

To be eligible for Block Grant support, a publishing company must:

have its head office in Canada, maintain editorial control in Canada and be at least 75 percent Canadian-owned
maintain full control over editorial processes, have editorial independence from any other company receiving Book Publishing Support from the Canada Council for the Arts, and produce separate financial statements
have book publishing as its primary, rather than a peripheral or occasional, activity
have at least 16 eligible titles in print and be committed to a sustained trade book publishing program, consisting of titles by a variety of authors
have published at least four eligible titles between 1 December 2006 and 30 November 2007 (Exception: Those applying to the Block Grants component for the first time are still eligible if they have published only three eligible titles in the above period.)
use appropriate and effective means to market, distribute and create public awareness of its publications
issue clear royalty statements on a regular basis and have fulfilled all contractual obligations to writers, illustrators, translators and other copyright licensors; no grants will be issued to publishers that owe payments to writers, illustrators, translators and (or) other copyright licensors as of the application deadline.

To apply to this component, publishers must have been successful in their last application for an Emerging Publisher Grant. (Those that were not successful can apply to the Emerging Publisher Grants component again, but not to the Block Grants component.)

First-time applicants to the Book Publishing Support program cannot apply for a Block Grant, regardless of the number of eligible titles the publishing house has produced. They must apply to the Emerging Publisher Grants component instead.

Publishers that were first-time applicants to the Block Grants component in 2007 and were not afforded a grant must apply to the Emerging Publisher Grants component for the 2008 deadline.

First-Time Applicants to This Component

First-time applicants to the Block Grants component may be eligible for interim funding (one-time only) if they are refused funding by the Block Grants peer assessment committee and if they have received two consecutive grants from the Emerging Publisher Grants component. The unsuccessful application will be forwarded to the Emerging Publisher Grants peer assessment committee for a second evaluation.

If this second evaluation is favourable and the publisher receives funding in 2007, it must apply to the Block Grants component in 2008. But if this second assessment is unsuccessful, the publisher’s next application must be submitted to the Emerging Publisher Grants component.

Title Eligibility

Eligible Titles

You must submit only eligible titles with your application for funding.

To be eligible, a title must:

contain at least 50 percent Canadian-authored creative content¾text or graphic
have at least 48 printed pages between the covers (with the exception of children’s books, which must contain at least 24 printed pages)
have a print run of at least 350 copies
be published principally in English, French or one of Canada’s Aboriginal languages, and
acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, if produced by a publisher receiving Book Publishing Support.

Because the Canada Council’s mandate includes supporting production in the literary arts, and the study of literature and the arts, only titles in the following categories are eligible:

fiction
poetry
drama
graphic novels (more than 47 pages)
publications for children and young adults, except those in ineligible categories (see below), and
literary non-fiction.

The Canada Council defines literary non-fiction as narrative text about real events, people or ideas, where the writer’s voice and opinion are evident and the narrative is set within a context and a critical framework. The work should be accessible to a general reading audience and cannot be intended for a specialized or academic readership. Eligible literary non-fiction titles make a significant contribution to literature, or to information about the arts or to the enjoyment of writing by Canadians. Titles within the following subjects are eligible, if they meet all other eligibility criteria: art, architecture, biography, history, literary criticism, nature, philosophy, politics, reference, social sciences, sports and travel.

Audio productions are eligible if they would be eligible for support as books and they are professionally produced on CD, DVD or other digital formats.

Reprints, including new format reprints, are eligible if they are reprints of eligible titles and were released at least 12 months after the original edition. Reprints will be supported at 50 percent of the amount for new titles, and straight reprints are limited to two titles in the period 1 December 2005 to 30 November 2006. There is no limit on the number of new format reprint titles (see the Title Analysis Form for details).

Ineligible Titles

Titles that are not eligible for support by the Canada Council include:

those with a print run of more than 25,000 copies
those not printed in Canada, except international co-editions (clearly indicated as a co-edition on the title page or the copyright page) or full-colour, highly illustrated books from an eligible genre (but you must be able to demonstrate that printing at a competitive price was not available in Canada)
saddle-stitched books, except illustrated books for children or books of poetry (but no more than 50 percent of the poetry titles produced by your publishing house per year may be saddle-stitched)
academic, scholarly or educational publications destined primarily for an educational or scholarly market
catalogues of visual art exhibitions (in other words, a publication of one or more visual artists’ work related to a specific exhibition, which includes one or more of the following elements: detailed information regarding the exhibition, a list of works exhibited, an artist’s statement and provenance of the works)
reference books, unless they are about the arts
books with text that is primarily short captions, quotations, jokes or sayings
calendars, agendas, almanacs and cookbooks
guidebooks, including travel, nature and gastronomy guides
publications that describe how-to techniques, skills or games
colouring and activity books
trivia and quiz books
autobiographies that emphasize personal growth (in other words, those that focus on self-actualization, self-improvement, or devotional or spiritual practice)
psychology and self-help books
professional manuals and reference books intended for a specialized audience
illustrated non-fiction publications containing fewer than 10,000 words (unless they make a significant artistic or literary contribution)
publications commissioned or paid for by an individual, group, political party or company where the applicant publisher does not have complete and independent editorial control (if the copyright for an eligible title is held by an organization, a government department or the Crown, you must include contract details in the Title Analysis Report form that you submit with each title)
co-publications with governments, government departments or agencies, except titles that are co-published with museums or art galleries
publications for which the author receives no royalties (royalties must be paid on each copy of a book sold)
books to which the author has contributed financially toward the publication costs (this includes an author’s obligation to purchase a given number of copies of his or her book as a condition of publication)
books for which 50 percent or more of the print run is pre-sold outside normal trade bookselling channels and book clubs
publications written by owners or employees of your publishing house, unless these titles represent less than 25 percent of the house’s program each year (an exception can be made for publishing collectives, but you must make a special request)
collections of previously published articles, transcripts of broadcasts and conference papers, unless they make a significant literary contribution (as defined above for eligible literary non-fiction)
verbatim interviews, unless they make a significant literary contribution (as defined above for eligible literary non-fiction), and
books containing prominently displayed advertising, promotional material and (or) corporate logos.

If you wish to obtain a preliminary assessment of a title’s eligibility, send a written request to the Writing and Publishing Section Officer. Include a copy of the finished publication and a completed Title Analysis Report form (the form can be obtained from the program officer or the Canada Council’s website.

You must request assessments of title eligibility on or before 15 October.

Grant Period and Amount

Grant Period

The annual grants are for 12 months, beginning on 1 December of the year that you apply and ending on 30 November of the following year.

Calculation of Grant Amounts

Grant amounts are based upon the production in previous years, but are awarded to offset future expenses for the publication of eligible titles. Each Block Grant awarded can consist of two elements: a base component calculation and a bonus point award.

The base component is calculated from the number of eligible titles the publishing company has produced over the previous three years (for multi-year grants) or two years (for annual grants). The number of eligible titles produced over the respective period in a given category is factored by an average deficit for that category. Then it is adjusted for the amount that the company has received from the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

The total budget for the base component is then prorated by category and divided among the total number of eligible titles.

The bonus point amount is awarded by the peer assessment committee, based on its comparative evaluation of each applicant’s publishing program. The total budget available for bonus point funding is divided by the total number of points that the committee awards to applicants, providing the value for each bonus point.

When the base and bonus point components have been added together for all publishers, the committee reviews the results to ensure that their final recommendations will accurately reflect their overall assessment of publishers in terms of the objectives of the program and the relative merit of each application.

For your convenience, the form is modelled on the one used in the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Application Form

Book Publishing Support: Block Grants (pdf, 675KB)
This form can only be printed and cannot be filled out on-line.

Title Analysis for Book Publishing Support (2006 Titles)
This form can only be printed and cannot e filled out on-line.

Further Information

Elizabeth Eve
Writing and Publishing Section Officer
Canada Council for the Arts
350 Albert Street, P.O. Box 1047
Ottawa ON K1P 5V8

Telephone: 1-800-263-5588 (toll-free) or 613-566-4414, ext. 5576

TTY (TDD) machine, for hearing-impaired callers: 613-565-5194

Fax: 613-566-4410

September 2007