The Ministry of Culture awards these publication grants to support authors who have published an original work of literature.

Applications must be submitted within 12 months following the publication of the literary work.

Who is concerned

Eligible persons

Authors who are Luxembourg nationals or residents may apply for a publication grant.

For illustrated publications, the author and illustrator must submit a single joint application. In such cases, it is the collective work of the author and illustrator as a whole, and not the individual work of each, that will be taken into consideration.

Publication grants are not intended for:

• Luxembourg or foreign organisations;
• communes and associations of communes;
• sole proprietorships;
• commercial companies;
• nationals of other countries who are not Luxembourg residents;
• educational institutions;
• charities;
• any association or establishment that is party to a convention with the Ministry of Culture.

Eligible publication types

The following types of publication are eligible for a grant:

• Luxembourg or foreign publications written in one of Luxembourg's 3 official languages (Luxembourgish, French or German), or English;
• non-first editions, provided they have been edited, revised or re-illustrated;
• audiobooks and ebooks, provided the paper edition has not already received a grant from the Ministry of Culture.

The following literary genres are eligible:

• novels;
• collections of short stories or other narrative collections;
• travel diaries or collections of travel writings;
• autobiographies and autobiographical fiction;
• children's and young adult literature;
• literary comic books or graphic novels;
• poetry collections;
• plays;
• cabaret scripts;
• literary essays;
• artists' books of original literary texts (evaluated on a case-by-case basis).

Ineligible publication types

The following literary genres are not eligible:

• biographical works written by someone other than their subject;
• historical literature or chronicles (local or not);
• reworkings of transcribed interviews with important cultural figures;
• memoirs;
• PhD dissertations;
• collections of articles that have already been published;
• offprints;
• translations.

The Ministry of Culture does not award grants following the publication of an original work of literature for:

• projects and events intended to raise funds for charity;
• literary work commissioned by an association or establishment that is party to a convention with the Ministry of Culture;
• literary work that forms part of a primary school, secondary school or university curriculum.

Deadlines

Publishers wishing to receive the publication grant must submit a complete application within 12 months from the publication of the work of literature.

How to proceed

Filing an application

The application must include a request for a grant following the publication of an original work of literature, in addition to the following documents:

• 2 copies of the published work (copies of works for which a grant is awarded become the property of the Ministry of Culture; copies of works for which no grant is awarded will be returned to the author);
• for works published in Luxembourg, a copy of the certificate of legal deposit of 4 copies of the work with the National Library of Luxembourg;
• for works published abroad, copies of the certificates of deposit of one copy of the work with the relevant national library, and another copy with Luxembourg's national literature centre (CNL);
• a copy of the author's agreement with the publishing house or digital publishing platform;
• any other supporting documentation that may be useful for the application.

Applicants must also indicate how the work was published, i.e.:

• at the expense of the publisher;
• at the expense of the author;
• electronically (digital publishing platform);
• privately (self-publishing).

Applicants must complete the application form:

• using a computer; and
  
• in French, German, Luxembourgish or English.

Applications must be submitted to the Ministry of Culture by post, or by email to subsides@mc.etat.lu.

Once it has received the application, the Ministry of Culture will send the applicant one of the following documents:

• either a confirmation of receipt, if the application is complete;
• or a letter listing the documents still to be submitted in order to complete the application. In the latter case, the applicant must complete and sign the required form and return it together with all of the requested documents. Incomplete applications will not be considered for a grant.

Selection of grant recipients

Each application is reviewed by the publication grants committee, a working group of the National Book Council (Conseil national du livre - CNLi) tasked with advising the Minister for Culture on the publication grant requests received by the Ministry.

This committee is composed of Jeanne E. Glesener (Institute for Luxembourg Language and Literature of the University of Luxembourg), Nicole Sahl (National Literature Centre), Cédric Kayser (Ministry of Culture), Florent Toniello (author and literary critic). It ordinarily meets twice a year (in March and September) to review applications based on the following criteria:

• the professionalism of the published work's appearance (formatting, cover, ISBN, etc.);
• the content of the work (correct spelling and punctuation; coherence of the narrative; no religious or political rhetoric; no incitement to hatred, racism or sexism);
• how professionally the work has been promoted (legal deposit, number of copies printed, publisher's online presence, listing with libraries and bookstores, marketing).

The committee also verifies that the author has signed an agreement with the publisher to ensure that the author receives a portion of proceeds and that the publisher has committed to distributing the work.

Self-published works are evaluated separately. However, their formatting must meet professional standards and authors must specify what steps they are taking to distribute their work. The members of the publication grants committee reserve the right to request additional information on the distribution of the published work if they see the need to do so.

Grant amount

Grants are awarded as soon as possible, in the form of a direct payment of public financial aid to the beneficiary.

The amount awarded is based on the available budget and the number of applications received, but will generally not exceed EUR 1,500.

The grant amount is not affected by the number of prior publications by the author.

Forms / Online services

Who to contact