Last year UK libraries loaned my books out ~16,000 times.
All libraries are good things. They buy many hardback books and that in itself is very helpful to authors. And they provide a great public service, making books accessible to everyone.
In the UK (& Ireland) things are even better though. They pay authors (well ... UK authors) a fee of around £0.08 each time one of their books is loaned out.
For the year 2015/16 I was one of the 792 authors the library system paid between £1,000 & £2500 through the public lending right scheme.
The limit of £6,600 cuts off a long tail of writing superstars who would earn tens or hundreds of thousands under the scheme but does allow a larger rate to be paid, helping out authors with far fewer readers.
Over 22,000 authors received money under the system, and even if it's just enough to buy a takeaway, it's always nice to get. Plus it's great to hear that people all across the country are still reading your books.
Payments to authors account for less than 1% of the libraries budget in the UK.
The limit of £6,600 cuts off a long tail of writing superstars who would earn tens or hundreds of thousands under the scheme but does allow a larger rate to be paid, helping out authors with far fewer readers.
Over 22,000 authors received money under the system, and even if it's just enough to buy a takeaway, it's always nice to get. Plus it's great to hear that people all across the country are still reading your books.
Payments to authors account for less than 1% of the libraries budget in the UK.
That is a great system. I know IS libraries make decisions about your next book partly based on how often the current ones get borrowed, but this seems so much more generous and supportive of authors.
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