<p>I'd never be in this business if it weren't for libraries. Bridlington and Scarborough libraries, to be specific, in the late 1960s, full of an eclectic range of books, fiction and non-fiction, that still work their way into my head today.</p>
<p>Libraries matter. They're part of a civilised world. In more and more places, too, they reward authors who fill their shelves by paying them an annual sum based on book loans. This is known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Lending_Right" target="_blank">public lending right</a> and in the UK it's handled by a small, incredibly efficient organisation called <a href="http://www.plr.uk.com/" target="_blank">PLR UK</a>.</p>
<p>What PLR UK does sounds simple but must be a nightmare to manage, so all the more praise to them for doing it so well, and through the web too, so paperwork idiots like me can manage everything online.</p>
<!--more--><p>PLR UK monitors book loans in libraries for works by authors who have registered their titles with them. At the end of each year they pay you a sum based on estimated loans -- this year it's 6.29p for each. The total payout per individual author is capped at a maximum of £6,600 so the big guys don't wipe out all the available funds. This year a total of 250 authors reached the maximum payment threshold (I fell short by just a few pounds -- get borrowing books out there, will you?)</p>
<p>PLR UK have just released the payment statistics for last year, on time as ever, by email, available through a secure web site login. Here's how the payouts worked out for registered authors -- this is from the PLR newsletter which you can find at the foot of this article.</p>
<p><img src="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/screen-shot-2010-01-06-at-12-38-54.png" width="446" height="195" alt="Screen shot 2010-01-06 at 12.38.54.png" /></p>
<p>PLR is incredibly well thought out. It rewards authors on the number of books they've written, and how popular they are. But it doesn't hand out money unnecessarily to the very popular names, who don't need it, and spreads the rest around very evenly. Authors don't make anything like as much money as the public thinks -- and given falling book prices will earn less in the future unless their sales increase. So the importance of schemes like PLR -- the result of a long and brave campaign by book industry figures a couple of decades ago -- is likely to grow in the next few years.</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Lending_Right" target="_blank">According to Wikipedia</a> PLR is now operative in 28 countries, and was first mooted, amazingly enough, in Denmark during World War Two. The cost is borne by the taxpayer but it's very small in government terms and does, let it be said loudly, represent payment for services rendered -- writing books that the public read for free. In the UK the money comes from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport which in the financial year 2009-10 stumped up just £7.58 million for everything -- author payments and administration. Those payments cover an estimated 133 million individual book loans. Given that where I live in Kent the county council have thrown away a few millions on a 'web tv channel' no one watches this is surely a bargain.</p>
<p>UK authors can also receive money from the <a href="http://www.alcs.co.uk/" target="_blank">Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society</a>. ALCS stems from the original Writers' Action Group campaign which brought about PLR. But it is a private organisation that collects payments for secondary rights, such as photocopying, and foreign PLR schemes. I neglected to register my work with ALCS for a few years, foolishly thinking that being registered for PLR also registered my books for ALCS. That's incorrect -- you need to do it on both sites.</p>
<p>If you're an eligible author you'd be mad not to register your work with both PLR UK and ALCS, or any comparable organisation in your own countries. My annual income from the two now adds up to something like £7,700, which is not to be sniffed at. Make sure you register all editions of your work -- hardback, paperback and large print if you have them. Do that every time an edition comes out. If your ISBN isn't in the system it can't be counted.</p>
<p>The one gotcha in the UK system is we get no PLR for audio loans except in the rare instance they're part of a package that includes a book. That's not fair and the government ought to correct it. But that's a minor complaint. In the US they don't have PLR at all which is frankly scandalous. Authors deserve some modest payment for the mass lending of their work.</p>
<p>PLR UK and ALCS do a fantastic job. This writer would just like to say: thanks very much!</p>
<p><a href="http://davidhewson.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/2010newsletter.pdf" title="2010Newsletter.pdf">PLR 2010 newsletter</a></p>