Taxpayers in England fund books in Welsh
TAXPAYERS in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland are forking out millions of pounds to pay for Welsh books which only sell a handful of copies.
In the last five years, the Welsh Books Council was given £39million and Literature Wales received £3.85million. The money comes from the Welsh Assembly and Arts Council Wales, which in turn is funded by the UK Government.
Much of the cash is handed out by publishers to fund advances and royalties for Welsh authors.
One book funded by the scheme was At Arm’s Length, the autobiography of former BBC Wales controller Geraint Talfan Davies, which sold just 176 copies in four years.
The figures were obtained by Julian Ruck, writer of the bestselling Ragged Cliffs trilogy, who
‘It is glorified dole money’
has self-published his novels. He said the handouts were ‘glorified dole money for the Welsh literati’. Mr Ruck added: ‘Writers are given money to stay at home and write stuff that few people are ever likely to read.
‘Too often the works are vanity project biographies of so-called Welsh celebrities.
‘Did Lady Charlotte Guest or Dylan Thomas receive hand-outs? In these hard times, how can these payments be justified?’
Celebrities whose books were subsidised include comedian Owen Money, who reportedly received £6,000 to write his autobiography, Money Talks.
Musician Mal Pope was given £4,000 to write his memoirs, Old Enough To Know Better.
The Welsh Books Council said works which had benefited from author advances sold an average of 2,300 copies each.
Last year, it received £4.47million from taxpayers and handed out £1.85million to publish Welsh-language books. Another £751,465 went on English-language books by authors living in Wales.
The Books Council will be given £4.1million in 2012-13, said a Welsh Assembly spokesman.