Canelo / Arts Council England

Canelo / Arts Council England | 

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Literature in the 21st Century: Understanding Models of Support for Literary Fiction

This, then, is not an easy time for literary fiction. Nevertheless, there 

are a few bright spots: 

•   New independent publishers continue to emerge

•   There is no conclusive evidence that publishers are reducing their 

marketing, even if this is a common feeling among writers 

•   Film rights, translation rights, audiobooks and new crowd-sourcing 

models are all on the rise as ways of supporting literary fiction

•   The growth in creative writing courses offers teaching 

opportunities for writers, but also creates a more competitive 

landscape for authors

At the start of our research we expected both good and bad news; 

to find that some of the pessimism that seems to surround the book 

world was unwarranted. To some extent this was true. As the above 

suggests, though, our research indicates this is emphatically not an 

easy time, and that models to support literary fiction are stretched 

thin, more than at any point in recent decades. 

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