When inviting people to Belfast Liberal Drinks yesterday, I didn’t know what people’s reaction would be. Following correspondence from one member, I have learnt more about PLR than I ever knew before. To be honest, I had not really thought about how authors would be compensated for their books being borrowed from libraries.

For those that don’t know,

Public Lending Right (PLR) is the right for authors to receive payment under PLR legislation for the loans of their books by public libraries. To qualify for payment, applicants must apply to register their books with us. Payments are made annually on the basis of loans data collected from a sample of public libraries in the UK.

In the Guardian, bestselling romantic comedy author Trisha Ashley is quoted as saying.

When I think of some of the elderly novelists who rely on their PLR payments, it makes my blood boil. For many authors it is a large and hugely important part of their income and this especially applies to the many excellent authors who are hugely popular in libraries, but who do not get published in mass market paperback.

The Society of Authors and the Royal Society of Literature are supporting a petition to The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt, Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Culture Media & Sport to continue to support the PLR.

text of authors’ statement on plr

The Public Lending Right scheme, under which authors receive 6p when a book is borrowed from a public library, is funded by the Department for Culture Media and Sport. Over the last three years, while public spending has been buoyant, PLR’s allocation has fallen by 3%: over 10% in real terms.

While accepting that DCMS has been instructed to reduce its budget, we ask the Secretary of State, Jeremy Hunt, to recognise that the £7.5m spent on PLR gives effect to a legal right and is not a subsidy. It provides working writers with a modest income when their books are read by library users free of charge. PLR is particularly important to authors whose books are sold mainly to libraries and to those whose books are no longer in print but are still being used.

Press coverage tends to focus on a few successful authors, yet most struggle to make ends meet. PLR provides a significant and much-valued part of authors’ incomes. The £6,600 upper limit ensures that the fund helps those most in need.

The admirably efficient PLR Office has already cut its running costs very substantially. Any reduction in PLR will have an immediate and detrimental effect on the ‘front line’ payments to authors.

According to the Guardian,

The mean average income for an author in the UK was £16,531 in 2007, according to a survey carried out that year by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, which also revealed that the bottom 50% of authors earn less than 10% of total income.

You can sign the petition here.