In an article I wrote yesterday I spoke about how British authors are entitled to just over 6 pence (10 cents) per book loaned from local authority run libraries through PLR Payments.
Interestingly, a public consultation has opened up where the Government is inviting opinions from people (primarily authors and interested parties) on the proposed rate per loan for 2014. This consultation is inviting views on the Rate Per Loan, but I thought that it would be a good time to raise a few questions about why this money was made available in the first place and whether the people it was made available for (struggling authors) are really benefiting from it.
“PLR was established by the Public Lending Right Act 1979 which gave British authors a legal right to receive payment for the free lending of their books by public libraries.”
It was started after authors campaigned to the UK’s Government to address the fact that the majority of authors don’t make close to minimum wage and that being paid for books borrowed from libraries was only right and would give their earnings a much needed bump.
As crime writer Penny Grubb told The Guardian a few years back: “For many writers PLR payments are a substantial part of their annual income and exceed their income from primary sales. With average earnings for writers so low, and with such a short shelf life for books in shops these days, PLR income for many writers is a vital part of their take-home pay.”
The problem is that only a VERY small percentage of authors are able to claim the maximum amount available: only 183 authors surpassed 100,000 loans and therefore got close to the £6,600 ($10,000) cap that the Government puts on the amount you can claim. This fact is made all the more frustrating when you consider that those who had over 100,000 of their books borrowed were likely among the lucky few that didn’t actually need the money…
My idea – and it is only that – after having read through the data is that perhaps we should look at who is getting the money in greater detail and consider whether authors who have earned over a certain amount in that particular year should be excluded from being able to claim PLR with the aim of making the payments per loan higher to those who haven’t. So, for example, if the aim of PLR truly is to address the fact that the majority of authors are not making the average, or even minimum, wage then why is the amount per loan so low when it is obvious that only the big name authors are likely going to be able to make the kind of money that could be considered to be actually helping them feed their children and pay their mortgage (as opposed to being a little extra beer money)?
Last year, Bouremouth University carried out a revealing study that found that the annual average income for professional writers aged 25-34 (from writing alone) is only about £5,000 ($8,200). Therefore, a typical writer earns less than 33% of the average national British income. The sad truth is that the top 10% of authors earn more than 50% of total income where as the bottom 50% earn less than 10% of the income; so it really is a ‘winner takes all’ market. Although I don’t want to side too much with fantasy over another genre, what I would remind everyone of is that Fantasy / Science-Fiction / Horror are lesser read genres. Basically, all the PLR money is going to the crime genre as things stand.
But, how do we address this problem and make PLR payments a way of sustaining the authors not earning top dollar? Well, I think the upper tax threshold in the UK is around £35,000, which isn’t a bad sum of money at all (I’d be happy if I was earning that, put it that way!). If an author is making that much money in a year it is unlikely that the £6,600 is ‘necessary’ to support their writing career. If we can find a way to exclude the already wealthy authors then this frees up the money to boost the pitifully low payments. Also, with less than 200 authors being able to claim the £6,600 ($10,000), we could consider dropping that number to £5,000.
With these measures in place we could look at raising the amount per a loan to, for example, 10pence (16.5cents) per loan. This would mean that authors not earning a ‘good’ wage would be the ones getting the money that was originally allocated to help sustain Britain’s writers. The lower cap would, of course, hit a few, but it would be for the greater good and with the community feel of the writing profession I feel be warmly welcomed. There is also the fact that with the volatile nature of the publishing industry an author losing out on earning over £5000 in one particular year may benefit in subsequent years – plural – by earning £2000 ($3,300) as opposed to £1,200 ($1,950) if we use our example of increasing the PLR amount from 6pence to 10pence.
Of course, this 6pence to 10pence figure is a figure suggested without having the statistical data available to work out how much could be saved from reducing the current cap from £6,600 to £5,000 and excluding those who are earning about the upper-tax threshold for that particular year. The suggestions is that the amount is made as high as possible for the year the consultation invites suggestions for, but the overall aim would be to review the amount that the Government allocates to this cause.
Currently 28,000 authors claim PLR and, should the above recommendations of a new lower cap and exclusion of authors who earn above the upper-tax threshold for that year be accepted, even doubling the amount each author is paid per loan from 6pence to 12pence wouldn’t demand an unreasonable amount from the £2.5billion adult skills fund.
I’d like to end this article by asking what you guys think… Do you think it would be unfair not to pay the top earning authors on years they earn more than the upper-tax threshold just because they sell more books or do you think that PLR should, as I do, be more of a means to support authors who may otherwise struggle? Can you think of any other alternatives?
Richard Marpole
Jennie Ivins
Hey Marc,
I think you’ve layout quite an interesting and potentially useful proposal. As you say the PLR should be there to help struggling authors and therefore it should be seen as a kind of Arts grant. Authors are a way for our country to expand its artistic and cultural relevance but if we don’t have writers who can afford to write then we’ll loose our arts and culture.
Cutting off the £35k+ authors is reasonable as that is quite a good salary to be bringing in.
It will be interesting to see how the public consultation goes.
Nate
I didn’t know about the existence of this payment in the first place. I use my local library quite a lot, sometimes reading there first and then buying the books if I love the book and want to keep it.
I’m not sure if it’s a good use of public money, in this economic climate, to be honest. At the same time, I like the idea of small-sales authors becoming famous/getting more money out of library books, so your idea of restricting the payment by income/sales level is a good compromise.
I’d really like to check the numbers for the current payments, author popularity, and country distribution.
(by the way, the 40% tax threshold is around £42k, not £35 hehe)
As a huge fan of the genre who would love to see more new authors putting out
works for me to read and for established authors to be able to continue to
write, I absolutely sympathize with the desire to help authors make a living
wage. I’m also a philosophy buff, however, and I can’t help but analyze
things in terms of their justifications and underpinnings rather than just
their results. Because of that, I have a difficult time supporting PLR in
general and this proposal in particular. The money paid to an author via PLR
is, I assume, taken from the general tax coffers. This means that the PLR, in
effect, forces everyone to subsidize the author’s income. Since national
expenses are increased due to PLR, the tax burden is increased on everyone who
pays taxes, including people who never step foot in a library. In regards to
PLR, you found it frustrating that those who received the most generally
needed it the least. Somewhat similarly, libraries tend to be used more by
those with less income, meaning that people who least use the library are
forced to pay more to support it. Those who’s philosophy is of a more
socialist bent, who believe society has a right to impose such requirements on
the individual, will likely not object to such a system. Those with a more
libertarian viewpoint, like myself, find it problematic. This proposal
specifically makes that situation worse, since it explicitly disconnects the
payment from the number of reads once a certain threshold of income is
reached. If PLR was based on a moral right for the author to be compensated
for his work, then the author’s income would be irrelevant. That right would
not be reduced because an author makes a certain amount of money. Putting an
income cap on the benefits makes it absolutely clear that the payment is a
form of social support, not a form of economic compensation.
Dan, it is taken from the Adult Skills Budget, which is at a set amount each year. Therefore, by increasing PLR you don’t increase the tax threshold you just consider gathering it from other areas (such as apprenticeships, which are also a form of Social Welfare, for example).
I think the fund was set up with the aim of supporting authors and, therefore, a kind of social support to enable writers to write as opposed to get a part time job. Although you may lean politically to the right (keep in mind I work for the Conservatives…) you aren’t required to be against all cases of social support; especially when that support is being allocated to working people, surely?
I may be centre-right politically, but I do believe in supporting hard working people.
Overlord, I’m not overly familiar with UK politics and budgeting, but I’ve never seen a system where spending money doesn’t affect the bottom line. I’d have to ask how that “set amount” for the ASB is calculated and what would happen if you simply eliminated the ASB altogether. In other words, there may not be a direct link between the PLR and this year’s budget but it’s all part of the same system and the effects are there, even if delayed or hidden.
For what it’s worth, I also don’t consider myself left or right – I think that’s too simplistic a scale. I agree with the right on certain things, but I’m equally strong in my support of some left issues, like gay marriage or a woman’s right to control her own body. And I’m not required to be against or support anything. I simply don’t see a morally justified case for social support. Feeding the hungry is laudable and a wonderful cause, but that doesn’t justify me putting a gun to your face and demanding you give part of your income to local food banks. All taxes are collected under threat of violence. You either pay what is demanded or it WILL be taken from you by force. Just because most people recognize that they have no choice and so quietly acquiesce to the system doesn’t change the fundamental nature of what’s happening.
This is a SFF literature site, not a place dedicated to political theory, so I won’t belabor the point any more. I just wanted to point out that there are a LOT of issues associated with such programs – there are many that we haven’t even touched on. It’s complex and there are no simple, easy answers no matter where you stand on the political spectrum.
Agreed on no simple answers and really do appreciate your feedback. I’m by no means saying I’ve come up with an answer that’ll fix everything, just throwing an idea out there 🙂