One of Malta’s leading publishing houses boycotted this year’s edition of the national children’s book awards, accusing the book council of “becoming complicit in the exploitation of authors”.
Merlin Publishers, which won more than half the available prizes on the night, did not attend the prize-giving ceremony at the Malta Book Festival earlier this week, citing a “profound disagreement” with the book council’s direction.
Merlin Publishers director of publishing Chris Grupetta are at odds over paying book authors versus vanity publishing.“It is supporting and therefore indirectly applauding quantity over quality, which in turn promotes mediocrity at the expense of careful manuscript selection and a strong editorial input,” director of publishing Chris Gruppetta said.
Mr Gruppetta’s main bone of contention is that the council does not differentiate between publishers who pay their authors and so-called “vanity publishers”, who make authors pay for their book to be published, or do not pay royalties. “It’s a free market, but as the only official body that is publicly funded and supposed to strive for excellence, the book council should differentiate,” he said.
The Malta Book Fund, another initiative by the council, also regularly rewarded such publishers, he added, while stand allocations at official events like the book fair did not reflect the additional investment made by some publishers to provide a polished product. “That’s why people regularly complain that the whole thing looks like a bazaar,” he said.
As the only official body that is publicly funded and supposed to strive for excellence, the book council should differentiate
Comparing publishing to art forms such as theatre, Mr Gruppetta argued that everyone was free to choose where and how much to invest, but that “amateurish” artistic products did not, and should not, have the same access to national institutions.
When contacted by this newspaper, however, book council chairman Mark Camilleri dismissed Mr Gruppetta’s “wild statements” as unfounded. While acknowledging that Merlin was consistently responsible for “high quality and innovative work”, he said it would be unfair of the council to discriminate between publishers.
“Does he expect us to deny applications from publishers who don’t pay authors?” Mr Camilleri asked. “The solution needs to start with the authors. We can’t force publishers to pay royalties if the authors accept such conditions.”
He called on authors to form a union and fight for their rights, which he said the council was ready to support. Already, he added, the council had instituted public lending rights with proceeds going directly to the authors. Speaking about the book fund, Mr Camilleri said a mechanism based on rigorous criteria was in place to guarantee quality.
“The fund is very competitive; just look at the recipients and judge for yourself,” he said.
Nevertheless, he welcomed Mr Gruppetta’s complaints, which he said were healthy for the publishing industry.
“It’s quite natural in the book world for publishers to boycott awards and make their disagreements open and public. We remain very good friends,” he said.
This is not the first time the book awards have prompted controversy. Several members of the council reportedly threatened to resign early last year after serious shortcomings in the previous year’s awards, which they attributed to Mr Camilleri’s leadership.