Health warning: this is going to be a controversial post, so please lower your blood pressure before reading.
Children's writers have always been great supporters of the wonderful UK library service. Libraries and writers enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Libraries nurture embryonic readers, they buy books, and they provide us with a sliver of our income in the form of PLR (public lending rights - the small payment made to writers when their books are borrowed). In return, we write books and those books are given free of charge to anyone who wants to read them. Many of us have been vociferous in our support of libraries in the face of threatened cuts.
As children's writers, we know our readers rarely have a book-buying budget. They may not be able to persuade a parent to buy a book, but should be able to persuade a parent to allow a library visit. Few parents can afford to buy the huge numbers of picture books a child reader can get through, but a library will provide. The library is a golden gate to a life of reading, a gate we need to keep open.
In the current economic climate, though, some libraries are ducking out of the symbiosis and turning to bite the hand that feeds. An advertisement for a library early last year read 'Buy none, get six free'. It's clever, but its implicit suggestion that people shouldn't buy books is underhand, and damaging to writers and the publishing industry. A meeting at Cambridge Central Library last month invited suggestions from the public on how to make cuts in the library service over the next three years. One measure the library is proposing to adopt is to cut the book-buying budget for the current year from £350,000 to zero. I suggested it would be less damaging for authors and publishers if they cut it by £120,000 a year in each of the three years. No, they said, this was a cut that could be implemented immediately. It was, they agreed, regrettable that it would be damaging to the publishing industry and to writers at a time when they were also struggling.
Regrettable. Some of those writers and publishers will go to the wall if this strategy is widely adopted, but might survive if the saving had been spread out. Of course, 'it's not the libraries' fault, everyone has to make cutbacks'. That's true. But books are the core of a library. Why not cut back on whizzy, hi-tech borrowing systems that scare elderly readers, on new carpets, new furniture, and far too much lighting left on all the time? The symbiot is becoming selfish and ignoring the needs of its partner.
One man suggested that many people have books in their homes that they don't intend to read again, so libraries could just ask people to donate books and then the library wouldn't need to buy any books at all. The library spokespeople seized on this suggestion enthusiastically. There are around 4,500 libraries in the UK. That represents a lot of lost income for writers and publishers if they stop buying new books. The symbiot is turning parasite.
It looks likely that PLR may be axed as part of the government's cut-backs so loans, even of donated books, will generate no income for writers. The current PLR rate is around 6p per loan. If a book sale would bring an author a royalty of 60p (a fairly average figure), it takes ten loans to make up for one sale lost because the reader borrowed rather than bought the book. That's fair - by no means everyone would have bought the book if there were no library.
Compare and contrast:
- A pirate copies my book and posts it for free on the Internet; my publisher is outraged - people are reading the book for free, this is damaging sales, neither of us has an income from it. The
Yes, it's that time of year again. I so love it when the PLR statement comes out in January, and I can see which of my books have been the most popular in libraries over the year. And I love it even more in February, when money appears by magic in the bank - yippee!
For those who don't know about PLR (or Public Lending Right) it's a government scheme, paid much like royalties, to compensate authors, illustrators, photgraphers etc for library lending: a payback for all the people who have borrowed books from libraries, rather than bought their own copy.
Although of course, it is money my books have actually earned (payments are calculated from a cross-section of British libraries, at 6.29p per loan), when I get my payout each year, it still feels like Father Christmas just made an unscheduled stop!
The sketches have nothing to do with all this, as I'm sure you've gathered: things just looked a bit dry without piccies, so these are some sketches done travelling about Sheffield recently. Above is My Beloved doing a pretty good job of ignoring the irritating woman sitting next to him with her sketchbook held high!
As I write, the Google Book Settlement is gearing up for its fairness hearing in the US courts. This Settlement will affect authors and publishers worldwide, and in recent months authors have been bombarded by information that is at best confusing, at worst contradictory, and is still making my head spin even though one important deadline has now passed – that for “opting out” of the Settlement entirely.
Any author who had a book published in the US before 2009 and did nothing is now a part of the Google Settlement, like it or not… which is uncomfortably similar to having to remember to tick those tiny boxes hidden away in the small print if you NOT want your details shared with third parties (i.e. so they can sell them behind your back). Clearly, there is some advantage here for Google along the same lines. The trouble being I can’t quite work out what it is. Yet.
The other way of looking at the Settlement is that it involves some payment for the digital use of our books. That has to be a good thing, surely? Google claims to be building a digital library, so in future we might well look upon these payments with the same kind of gratitude as we do our share of the Public Lending Right for printed versions of our books. So I have broken a personal rule, and this time I did not tick the box. I “opted in”.
To me, you see, the Google Book Settlement is not about the stealing of copyright. It is about libraries. Since the advent of the written word, there have been libraries to collect and store knowledge. From the Great Library of Alexandria, to the British Library in London and other national libraries around the world, to the humble library in your local town, these are places where books in various formats are kept safe and loved. Whether these books are ancient scrolls, paper pages between glossy covers, or digital versions of our words, the important thing is that they are made available to the public because - correct me if I'm wrong - that is the whole point of publishing them in the first place. If our words are to survive the centuries, we NEED our books stored in more than one place, and preferably stored in more than one format.
The key word in the Settlement is “non exclusive”. Google won’t be the only digital library in the digital age, and nor should it be. Some of these libraries might choose to make their collections free to the public; others might charge a fee. But as long as systems exist, like PLR, to reward the creators of such works fairly for their efforts I don’t see the problem. The real issue seems to be setting up such a fair system in the first place, and that seems to rest in the hands of one man, Judge Denny Chin, who will preside over the fairness hearing in New York on 7th October.
I just hope I won’t regret not ticking that box!
I’m fascinated by the Public Lending Right scheme wherein authors receive money from the government for the lending of their books in public libraries. Nothing like having a little money involved to get accurate statistics on who is reading what. One author reports on what people are actually reading at the library.
The truth is that public libraries have become a service for the very young – the place where you go to inspire the nippers with a love for literature. For better or worse (and I’d say worse), they are no longer where many adults go in search of information (what’s Google for, after all?).
If adults go at all, it seems that it’s hardback fiction that they are mainly after. Josephine Cox and Danielle Steel came in second and third place in PLR’s top twenty last year (with sales in Steel’s case totalling over 500 million, I’m not quite sure this is the kind of struggling writers that the Brophy’s had in mind). And so far as I can see, there were no authors of non-fiction for adults in the top hundred; though Terry Deary, who wrote the Rotten Romans etc for kids, non-fictin of a kind, does get there.
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Some excellent points Anne. Have you made these comments to Alan Gibbons?
Great post, Anne. Excellent. I quiblle with your figure of an author earning 60 from the sale of a book, though - the average is supposed to be much less, and is certainly less for those of us on % of nett receipts. Nearer 20p for books sold at high discount.
The idea of not having books in a library for 6 months is a really interesting one.
I also think we need to educate the public more about the effects of this. I tried to do this with my Fair Reading idea, but I never had time or resources to do much with it.
Good stuff, anyway. And yes, authors are going to the wall. Many of us are being dropped for falling sales. Grim.
Well done for summing a very, very worrying situation, Anne. PLR saves my life each year - even if most of it goes into paying my half-year tax.
It's so hard explaining the writer's financial situation without sounding precious, grand, or mean-spirited. Thanks!
I agree with your comment about the whizzy checkout systems and computers and new carpets etc. taking over. After struggling with a 1960's hut on the edge of the local park for too many years, we have just got a fantastic new library (it cost millions - possibly the last grant ever).
It's a big modern building with loads more space, but the book budget has actually been cut. The result is arrays of computers, desks, comfy sofas, cafe, artwork, reading garden, and self-scan checkouts... but tiny little shelf units and woefully few books. OK they have just moved in, but if there is no book budget where are the books going to come from? And where are they going to put them all?
Financewise, I have NEVER had 60p royalty except from a hardcover sale - paperback varies between 28p (full price) and 2p (book club), and PLR was half my income last year and looks as if it will be the only income this year. I am about to starve...
Really interesting stuff, Anne. And I agree with all you say. With publishers holding their breath to see how digital publishing will affect them, libraries were the last chance for some books/authors. I confess I rarely use our local library anymore. Why? Because I don't need DVDs or CDs or the Internet. Books? oh yes, they have a few tucked discreetly away. Unfortunately, their range is somewhat lacking.
For me, the tragedy of library provision is it's demise in schools. I have visited hundreds of schools that no longer have libraries. That seems to me the most short-sighted cut of all, in terms of the next generation of readers (although it doesn't affect PLR of course).
Looks like I'm going to have to paint more and write less. Just as I thought I might be getter somewhere...
We have the same problem here in Australia. The local library is the most used resource in the community - their statistics show this. The Council (LEA - do you still have them?) used the argument that the library was well used so they did not need any more new resources. The library came back with the answer that it was well used because it had new resources.
New publishing tends to be very expensive in Australia and, much as they might want to, some people simply cannot afford to buy large numbers of books. We do have PLR but yes they are considering cutting it. May I suggest all members of ABBA write letters to the media?
This is a very sad post, Anne, and the whole situation with the libraries is most dispirting. I do hope someone somewhere in authority is taking notice of what you're highlighting. And yes, the almost disappearance of the Schools Library Service is ghastly. Thanks for writing this!
Sound points well made. Like Penny I rely on PLR at a low time of year - it's often higher than my Royalties. I don't know what the answer is, especially as I'm a bit of a hypocrite in that I don't often visit my local library. I know many people who do, though.