I don't like being Mr. Burns

Or why I love subventions

I remember the first time I looked up the word subvention. I was looking for grants for my my first book , and one was specifically to underwrite the costs to publish the book.

Cool word! Cool idea.

Subventions are strangely secretive. You are not supposed to run around tweeting and telling everyone that a university or a lovely foundation is giving your publisher funds to offset the costs of production. And it’s more seemingly shameful if it is coming out of your own savings account.

This is dumb! Stop hiding your subventions. Subventions can be beneficial for authors. And during most of English-language publishing, at least, they were normal. They allowed Jane Austen to be published. Plus, sometimes an author can really make out by partnering with a publisher on both the front and back end.

Just ask Harriet Beecher Stowe. She was offered two different deals for Uncle Tom’s Cabin: one was what we would consider normal today: the publisher would pay all the costs of the book, a…