How will the Trump administration impact publishing?
The third in my unplanned series, following one on how tariffs will impact paper and printing, this time not on tariffs but on how cuts to government spending might change the publishing landscape. 1
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Nonprofit Small Presses will be facing some tough situations, I expect. Many of them rely heavily on donations and grants; book sales alone are not enough to keep them humming. (Jane Friedman wrote about how many cannot survive on book sales.) All nonprofits must make their tax filings publicly available, and the ProPublica database is excellent. I looked up one press at random to see where the money comes from— 41.4% came from book sales in the most recent filing (I deleted the name of the press out of politeness, but it’s all available online), 58.6% came from elsewhere.
Going deeper into the filing reveals that they received $142,830 in government grants. They also received another $270,620 in other contributions.
It seems, given this ratio of sales to grants, which I imagine is typical—let’s say an average of 50/50 sales and non-sales revenue, with much of the non-sales revenue in the form of grants—that if the cuts to the NEA, NEH, state arts and humanities councils, and other government grant programs aren’t overturned and funding restored, nonprofit small presses may have to contract, join together, or disband. Of course, they might find more and other forms of donations and revenue. (And yes, those donations might be harder to get given there will be so many other places the private sector might want to distribute funds).
University Presses are also nonprofits. University presses are funded through a dizzying array of arrangements with the universities whose names they bear. For some, the university pays for all the expenses of a press —this is what most people imagine, and I certainly did until I was educated on this issue not that long ago. A few even have their own endowments. But for the most part, they rely on book sales for a large percentage of their budget, as this chart shows
Cuts to government funding will impact university presses on multiple levels, a few of which include:
presses at public universities may receive less funding from their state government (there are 58 of these) that could shrink the green and orange bars above.
all presses, including ones not at public universities (there are 104 of these) may receive less money from federal grants, including the NEH and NEA, shrinking green and orange bars.
faculty under contract with UPs, or expecting to be, may have their grant funding cut, thus lessening or extending their publication schedules. Similarly, faculty lines at colleges and universities might be cut. Subventions from the home institutions of scholars might also become more scarce.
Both of the above types of presses, nonprofit trade and academic, might face changes or pressures as to what they publish as well. For instance, Ohio recently passed SB1, which “substitutes governmental edicts for academic freedom; eliminates all diversity, equity, and inclusion activities on campuses; restricts how faculty teach; bans faculty strikes; and restructures the terms and the mission of each institution’s board of trustees. It applies to Ohio’s 14 public universities and 23 public community colleges and threatens loss of state funding if violated.” How will moves like this one alter editorial and personnel decisions at presses at Ohio State, Ohio University and elsewhere in the state? At other public universities in other states? Will public and university presses change their acquisition strategies, given restrictions on state funding as well as on government funding not just from NEA and NEH but also NIH and any other STEM-related goverment research programs? (Obviously I could continue this indefinitely: many universities have paused grad school admissions…) Will editorial boards at presses that have historically relied on goverment funding, public and private, be wary of signing up potentially controversial projects? Like so much else, this is confused and confusing. The tentacles are many and wind in many directions
Corporate Presses and Large Independent Presses have fewer if any immediate concerns apart from those we are seeing in the economy overall (recessions, dwindling book sales, etc). As these presses rely most heavily on market trends, it may be that the books they are most eager to acquire change flavor—in which direction it’s hard to predict. But that’s always been true, since the invention of the codex: for these places especially, publishing is a business first and foremost (though of course the other issues of tariffs from my previous posts would obtain.) If nonprofits are partially at the mercy of people in elected offices and the civil service, for-profits are at the mercy of the consumer. Choose your master!
For-profit small (and medium) presses. Finally we get to my category, the one I’ve only ever been involved with professionally (though I have published books I’ve written with university, corporate, and large indie presses). For these folks, I expect to see more of a trend we have been witnessing lately, one that is not connected to the current administration: contraction and consolidation.
Last year, Belt was acquired by Arcadia Publishing. A few weeks ago, Tin House was acquired by Zando. This past week, Two Dollar Radio was bought by Seven Stories Press. Also recently announced was a new collaborative umbrella of small presses called The Stable Book Group. The first instinct of many when they see that their fave indie has been acquired is to be upset, but often that is the wrong instinct, at least for those involved with the press itself. For reasons I’ve outlined here numerous times before—rising paper and printing costs, decline of media outlets covering books, and, the biggest factor by far, the expense of distribution—it’s almost impossible to make the numbers work as a standalone small press. (Arcadia, Belt’s parent company, is actually right on the cusp between a small and a medium press by the definition that floats around the internet: small presses have annual revenue of under 50 million and fewer than 100 employees; medium presses bring in between 50 million and 1 billion and have 100-999 employees). I think if your options are close down, be perennially beset by stress and anxiety, or be acquired by another, financially stable press, acquisition is clearly the best option. Certainly has proven to be in Belt’s case.
Nonprofit small presses might have a harder time joining forces given their funding situations, but it seems doing what for-profits have been lately might be something we see folks trying. I do think it’s important to remember that many of nonprofit presses were founded in the 1970s and 80s, when government and state grants were their most robust, and probably weren’t ever set up to survive radical changes in that model. (This also partially explains why many small presses are clumped in certain states, because those had the best state-based arts and humanities funding) But it also probably wise to remember that the founding of those presses, and the funding that went with it, was also ideological. It always has been. Government and nonprofit funding by definition requires grant seekers to adapt their wishes and wants to the priorities of the funders, writing proposals that best align with the goals of the organization to succeed. It’s always been a game with rules, and it still is, if the latest set of rules have changed suddenly, midstream, counter to the goals of free speech, and, potentially, illegally.
Partially because this is how I am constitutionally wired, I am looking at this current moment as one of opportunity: for-profit presses and, perhaps to a lesser extent, university presses at private universities, ould rise to the moment, given that our peers in the nonprofit sector are going to disproportionately distracted or defunded. The marketplace of ideas is where freedom reigns, or so they tell me? At any rate, maybe by publishing some 100% paid-for-with-consumer-discretionary-income goods we can do some good.
I’ve opened up my summer book proposal course. It will run from July 7-18.
Once again, as with the others in this series, I want to emphasize this is just my quick take. To be honest I keep waiting to read these articles on this topic by people on this beat who would do more reporting and research. But I haven’t seen those anywhere, so I am set down the thoughts swirling in my head. I hope others more informed will flesh all this out and delve deeper.