International Rights Fund For Literature

Support is available for literary agents, rights managers and publishers to attend international markets such as book fairs to sell rights in Australian works.

About the opportunity

This program supports literary agents, rights managers, and publishers to attend international markets such as book fairs to sell rights in Australian works of creative writing. This includes fiction, poetry, writing for children and young people, graphic novels, and narrative non-fiction (defined as autobiography, biography, essays, histories, literary criticism, or analytical prose).

Contributions of $5,000 per successful applicant are available.

Who can apply:

    • Literary agents, rights managers and publishers representing several Australian authors.
    • Individuals or organisations representing a range of Australian literary titles.

Who can’t apply:

    • Applicants who have not provided the required support material – an indicative itinerary or sample meeting schedule, biographies of key personnel, previous rights guides or catalogues.
    • Individuals and organisations who have an overdue grant report
    • Individuals and organisations who owe money to Creative Australia.

What you can apply for:

  • Travel and accommodation costs.
  • Book fair entry and stand costs.

Your application must comply with the following protocols. We may contact you to request further information during the assessment process, or if successful, as a condition of your funding.

Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts

All applications involving First Nations artists, communities or subject matter must adhere to these Protocols, provide evidence of this in their application and support material. More information on the First Nations Protocols is available here.

Commonwealth Child Safe Framework

All successful applicants are required to comply with all Australian law relating to employing or engaging people who work or volunteer with children, including working with children checks and mandatory reporting. Successful organisations who provide services directly to children, or whose funded activities involve contact with children, will additionally be required to implement the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations.

Applications will be assessed by Creative Australia staff.

Applications will be assessed against the following two assessment criteria:

  1. Quality
  • Quality and range of the works and writers represented.
  1. Viability
  • Evidence of the individual or organisation’s thorough planning and ability to carry out the proposal to a high standard
  • The individual’s demonstrated experience of selling rights.

You must submit support material with your application. Creative Australia and industry advisors will review this support material to gain a better sense of your project.

Your application will only be eligible if it includes the following essential support material:

  • an indicative itinerary or sample meeting schedule
  • biographies of key personnel
  • previous rights guides or catalogues.

The following support material may be included with your application:

  • a list of titles in which rights will be presented.

Our preferred method of receiving support material is via URLs.

You can provide up to three URLs that link to content that is relevant to your proposal.

If you cannot supply support material via URLs, you may upload support material to your application as written material (Word and PDF).

Key dates

Applications closed.

Please note: To apply you must be registered in our Application Management System a minimum of two business days prior to the closing date.

Contact

If you need help with your application, contact Artists Services.

Related Links

International Rights Fund for Literature FAQs

No. You can apply for support to represent backlist titles if they are appropriate for the market.

Yes. However, it is important that you provide some information about the individuals who are likely to be involved and their experience selling rights. Include information for more than one employee if necessary.

No. However you will need to provide the titles you hope to represent, or titles you have represented in the past which indicate the quality and range of the works. Applications to support travel to sell rights in only one or two titles will be unlikely to be competitive.

No. However you will need to provide an indicative meeting schedule based on your research or previous rights trips.

No. You can apply if you represent only one author, or you are an author representing your work only. However, your application may be less competitive.