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Government Open Consultation on PLR: My Idea
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.
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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.
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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?
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