In order to support Luxembourg's publishing activity, hard hit by the worldwide surge in the price of paper and supply difficulties, the Ministry of Culture is launching a call for projects aimed at professional Luxembourg publishing houses with regular editorial production, of quality and accessible to the greatest number.

This aid is aimed at the editorial programme of professional publishing houses, in particular fiction and/or non-fiction works published during the year 2022, and is intended to cover part of the costs linked to the increase in these manufacturing costs.

By setting up this one-off aid, the Ministry of Culture contributes to maintaining the diversity of the country's editorial offer and enables professional publishing houses to sustain their editorial programming and cope with the exogenous increase in costs, while respecting the legal obligations regarding the exploitation of the works. This aid thus affects all players in the book chain and promotes not only literary creation and production, but also equal access for all to Luxembourg literary production by limiting the explosion in the selling price of books.

Eligibility criteria

To be eligible, the applicant must:

  • Be a legal person, in accordance with the amended law of 10 August 1915 concerning commercial companies, whose registered office is established in Luxembourg and whose publishing activity appears in the articles of association;
  • Have a business permit;
  • Have existed for at least five years and demonstrate solid and confirmed experience in the field of publishing;
  • Publish on account of the publisher while respecting the legal obligations in terms of the exploitation of the works (Mode of publishing which presupposes the signing of a contractual document between the author and the publisher. The publisher bears the financial risks and ensures the publication and promotion of the work. The author assigns his/her economic rights and is contractually entitled to remuneration);
  • Have published at least two books in 2022;
  • Act in accordance with the legislation governing the applicant's activities;
  • Respect the ethics of the profession in its relations with authors, other publishers, distribution and distribution channels, booksellers and librarians;
  • Have a website and a regularly updated catalog with an average of three publications per year over the past three years;
  • Have distribution in a stable network of bookstores nationwide;
  • Proceed with legal deposit and obtaining an ISBN number for published works;
  • Achieve a significant share of the overall turnover of the structure through a publishing activity;
  • To be in economic balance.

Are excluded from this aid:

  • Associations (ASBL, de facto association) and foundations.

Eligible editorial programming

The works concerned are:

  • Published between January 2021 and December 2022 in print format;
  • Having a minimum print run of 250 copies per book;
  • Belonging to one of the following genres of fiction and/or non-fiction, in which the publisher must have already published during the last three years:
    • Prose, poetry, theatre, essays, comics, graphic novels, children's and youth literature, biography, art books, artist's books as well as books in the field heritage or history;
    • Collections, complete works, anthologies, reissues if they are reworked and translations;
    • Are not eligible: reviews, newspapers, directories, magazines, guides, bulletins, publications of a practical, strictly professional nature, and/or publishing articles exclusively related to current events, publications of an academic nature , school books, dictionaries and encyclopedias as well as cookbooks;
  • Written in Luxembourgish, French, German, English, Portuguese and/or Italian;
  • Written by Luxembourgish and/or foreign authors, illustrators, artists and/or translators.

Assessment criteria for granting aid

Applications submitted are assessed based on:

  • The relevance of the project, revealed by:
    • Alignment of the editorial programme with the objectives of this aid;
    • The balance between technical feasibility and financial feasibility of the editorial programme (the financial plan and the economic balance of the editorial programme).
  • The quality of the project, revealed by:
    • The experience and competence of the applicant in the field of publishing;
    • The coherence and artistic quality of the editorial programme;
    • The applicant's professionalism both in its consideration of copyright and in its distribution and dissemination strategies.
  • The predictable fallout from the editorial programme, revealed by:
    • Contribution to the national book sector (payment of royalties, payment of fees for readers, support for printers and/or graphic agencies, etc.);
    • The economic viability and sustainability of the applicant's publishing project (legal deposit, number of copies of the publication, online presence of the publisher, referencing of the work in libraries and booksellers, marketing of the work, etc.);
    • The scope of the publishing project (local, regional, national or international).

Financial indications

The total amount available from this aid scheme is €55,000.

Terms of allocation

Admissibility conditions

Only complete files are considered.

The compliance of the project with the eligibility criteria does not automatically lead to the allocation of aid from the State.

Application assessment

The selection of projects will be done by an internal commission made up of agents from the various cultural, financial and legal departments of the Ministry of Culture, which assesses each request according to its eligibility and formulates an opinion on the allocation and the amount. aid, based on the selection/assessment criteria.

The committee's decision is final.

Allocation and disbursement of financial assistance

The aid is granted on the basis of a call for projects.

Financial assistance takes the form of a direct payment to the beneficiary.

Presentation of the request

Required documents

The file submitted to the Ministry of Culture must include the following documents:

  • A formal request for assistance, duly substantiated and signed;
  • A document attesting to the constitution of legal personality under Luxembourg law;
  • The bank identity statement (RIB), the CCSS registration number and the VAT number of the structure;
  • The publishing house's catalog of publications for the past three years (2020, 2021 and 2022);
  • A model of a contract with the authors, illustrators, translators, artists of the publications;
  • A signed budget including expenses relating to production and publication costs, all fees and royalties, communication, promotion and dissemination/distribution costs for books published in 2022;
  • A sworn statement attesting to compliance with the Law of 20 December 2019 having as its object the establishment of a de minimis aid scheme and more particularly Article 3 of the said law;
  • A sworn statement attesting that a significant part of the overall turnover of the structure is achieved through a publishing activity;
  • Any other document deemed useful in support of the request.

Deadline and methods of sending

The request for aid must be submitted to the Ministry of Culture electronically until 30 November 2022 at midnight at the latest at the address subsides@mc.etat.lu.

No application will be accepted if the required documents have not been submitted in due form within the submission deadlines set out in this call.