Responding to Trump's grant cuts
A new idea from Maris Kreizman
Some perspective on recent news from my colleague Jeremy.—DK
Maris Kreizman (whose new book of essays I Want to Burn this Place Down will be published this summer) has a good LitHub column today in response to the Trump administration’s decision to cut the NEA grants that were promised to hundreds of cultural organizations, including many small publishers and magazines. Her main point in the column is that individual donations are wonderful, but can only take these organizations so far.
As she asks in the piece, “If government grants have all but disappeared, how do we create an environment where literary culture can still thrive?”
Kreizman puts forward a suggestion from n+1 publisher Mark Krotov: advertising. It seems anachronistic, but it’s worth thinking more about whether advertising is a marketing solution to which publishers can be convinced to return, whether in print or online. Krotov believes advertising is “extremely underrated” and commented to Kreizman, “One thing I’ve noticed—at least at n+1—is how much harder it’s become to convince publishers to advertise in print or even online.” I was reminded of “The Battle for Attention,” a recent article in The New Yorker by Nathan Heller, who talks to Mike Follett, the managing director of Lumen Research, which does detailed work tracking eye movement. Heller writes in the piece: “One of the most valuable advertising spaces, according to [Follett’s] data, is next to long, absorbing articles from trusted publications.”
That is exactly what n+1 provides, along with many of the publications affected by the NEA cuts such as McSweeney’s, Paris Review, and Zyzzyva. As Kreizman writes to close her column, “It’s not a definitive solution, but it’s one that doesn’t involve readers desperately scrounging for extra change so their favorite publications can survive. And perhaps such advertising can help a very plugged in lit mag audience discover new books.”
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