Library books are a great way for potential readers to discover authors, start following them and buy their future books.
But did you know that you can also earn extra income whenever your books are borrowed, read out or copied?
Apart from earning a royalty on any book bought by the library, authors can also receive a small amount of money every time someone borrows their book from a public library.
Authors, illustrators, editors, translators or audiobook narrators can receive remuneration from public library book loans. The UK PLR scheme pays up to £6,600 per year and the Irish PLR scheme up to €1,000 per year.
To be eligible for PLR you must meet the following criteria:
If you’re eligible you can register all books you’ve contributed to, for both UK and Irish PLR.
Please make sure that you sign up by 30 June to be included in the calculations up to 30 June.
For more information and contact details, please go to https://www.bl.uk/plr/
Secondary Rights are where a third party uses a work that’s already been distributed to the public – such as when schools photocopy books they own, or libraries lend books, or overseas TV companies retransmit UK TV signals.
The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) collects income from all over the world for writers and contributors to books:
The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) gives licensing options and collects income from businesses, educational institutions and government agencies to pay writers when their works are copied or scanned.
German PLR payments are based on information about the author’s name (rather than the book titles that are borrowed) and French PLR payments are based on a system that monitors which books the libraries are buying (not lending out).
To register with ALCS, you pay a small fee for lifetime membership (deducted from their first payment to you) and let them know which books and contributions to books, magazines and other works you have published. They will work out the rest and pay you your share twice a year.
