Trump promised back in 2016 that there’d be so much winning that we’d get tired of all the winning. And he’s certainly delivered in his first 24 hours on the job. But no, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of this much winning.
I could do a whole gallery of items about all the winning from the first day, but my eye caught a story from the Times of London that suggests the winning is spreading overseas to the UK, which is otherwise trying to commit suicide right now:
‘Pioneering’ literary agency that promoted diversity forced to close
A literary agency launched with the aim of bringing diversity to the publishing industry has closed after swallowing more than £1.3 million of public money in seven years.
The Good Literary Agency had been described as a pioneering force for change by Arts Council England on its launch, with its founders vowing to “blow open the pipeline” and improve access for the next generation of writers.
However, its founders announced its closure this week, saying publisher investment in authors was “more and more squeezed” and warning that progress on making the industry more diverse had stalled.
Gee, I wonder why it “stalled.”
The further you go in this incoherent and incomplete account (which never details what has to be the obvious cause of this closure, despite the taxpayer subsidy—the books didn’t sell!), the more it becomes clear the awful people behind this imprint are motivated by a hatred for their country, and for our civilization in general:
The agency’s launch in late 2017 had been boosted by the promise of an initial £580,000 grant from the Arts Council which said its research had shown that “the position of BAME writers within British writing and publishing, never robust, has in fact gone backwards” during the century.
BAME? I didn’t know either. It stands for “Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic.” I guess our BIPOC wasn’t good enough. Anyway:
Arts Council England gave the agency a further £380,000 in 2021 before two years later bringing it into its national portfolio with an annual £150,000 grant.
It said this week it would make a final £40,000 payment to the agency and would not be recouping any of its £1.3 million investment, saying it had “successfully delivered” against its funding agreement.
The literary agency’s most recent filings highlighted its financial predicament. In the year to June 2023 turnover dropped from £342,000 to £250,000, which included £164,000 in grants. It received just £75,000 in commission while its staff and director costs rose to £240,000.
“Turnover” is the euphemism for book sales, and you don’t need to have an advanced degree in accounting or finance to see that sales barely covered staff salaries, let along printing costs, marketing, distribution, etc.
But here’s the most revealing part from far down in the story:
[The publisher Nikesh Shukla] wrote last year that he would continue to “push for a books industry not funded by fossil fuel/arms investment/genocide complicity … the books industry still has a long way to go but this feels to me like a step in the right direction.”
In 2021 he said he had turned down an MBE for services to literature, writing: “Time will eventually consume those people who are proud of Britain’s bloody, brutal colonial history. I am happy to watch them crumble and fall.” . . .
“And it can be seen through the ways in which businesses focused on diversity, equality and inclusion are struggling and, in our case, faltering,” [the associate publisher] added.
Good riddance.
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