Welsh literature and the subsidy culture

Yesterday I came across an interesting assessment of the "value" of the subsidy culture that impregnates the Welsh literary / publishing scheme.  It's a bit difficult to extract hard data from the report written by somebody from Swansea University (there is no author's name on it), and there is no proper cost/benefit analysis within it, but it looks as if the Welsh Government's "Library of Wales" project cost the taxpayer about £530,000 in the first five years of its operation, 2008-13.  During that time 38 titles were published, mostly old "classics" which have been out of print for some time. It looks as if 18,000 copies of the books were given away to schools and libraries, and that around 38,000 copies were sold.  But no proper sales figures are published, and rumour has it that the term "sales" actually means numbers of books sent out on publication day from the warehouses (including the Welsh Books Council)  to the bookshops -- and does not take account of returns.  If that is the case, then the actual number sold over the counter is substantially less.  So on average each title has sold less than 1,000 copies.  Let's assume that good money has been paid for around 30,000 books.  Put another way, every copy sold has cost the taxpayer about £17.  (Sales income does not come back to the Welsh Government -- it goes to the publisher of the books.)

That does not look like a very sensible way of spending public funds, even though the objective is to demonstrate the unique English-language literary heritage of Wales and to ensure that "classic novels" are kept in print so that universities and schools can extol their virtues.  All very laudable, but how many of those "classic" novels are actually worth reading? Answers on a postcard please........

So £530,000 of public money has been spent in order to achieve 30,000 paperback book sales.  That makes me feel quite pleased that without any public subsidy whatsoever, I have achieved sales of 80,000 copies of the Angel Mountain novels.  Here is another interesting thought.  If I had been given a public handout of £17 per copy sold, I would by now be better off to the tune of £1,360,000 and might be lounging on my yacht somewhere in the Caribbean............

I wonder if the Library of Wales has brought more enjoyment (and perhaps "enlightenment" too) to its readership base than has the Angel Mountain Saga?  If anybody wants to suggest to me that my novels (or those of Iris Gower or Catrin Collier) are somehow less "worthy" or "significant" than some of those very dreary "classics" on the Library of Wales list I will get very upset indeed.

I'm always available to the Welsh Government if it wants me to give it some advice on publishing economics and the meanings of terms like "supply" and "demand"............

PS.  If any of the figures given above are incorrect, I will be very happy to have the correct ones given to me, so that I can publish them.