Yesterday, I received my PLR statement and I wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to all the lovely readers who have borrowed my books, ebooks and audiobooks from UK libraries between July 2022 and June 2023.

My top 5 borrows during that time were all paperbacks:
1. A Wedding at Hedgehog Hollow
2. Spring Tides at The Starfish Cafe
3. Chasing Dreams at Hedgehog Hollow
4. Healing Hearts at Bumblebee Barn
5. Christmas Miracles at Hedgehog Hollow

Want to know more about PLR? Here’s an explanation…

PLR stands for Public Lending Rights which is a payment to those who contribute to a book (and therefore can include illustrators, photographers, editors and audiobook narrators) for books being borrowed from UK libraries. (We also get paid for borrows from libraries in Ireland but that scheme runs separately). It’s not automatic. Authors need to register the ISBNs for each eligible title and I have a publication day checklist to remind me that I need to do this each time a new book comes out as, if you don’t get registered by a deadline each year, your book isn’t eligible for PLR that year.

Although the PLR payment is for library borrows, we don’t actually get paid for every single borrow. Each year, a sample of libraries around the country is announced and the number of times an author’s books are borrowed across the libraries in that sample is seen as representative of overall borrowings and a small payment (13.69 pence year – included the figure because you could Google it and find it in seconds for yourself if you were curious) is made for each borrow in the sample.

There is a flaw to the sample system as it very much relies on a distribution of books countrywide. When I was first published, my local library group – North Yorkshire Libraries – kindly bought six copies of my debut book and I donated six each of the subsequent two titles. Unfortunately, North Yorkshire didn’t appear in the sample for several years so, although those eighteen books were borrowed a lot, I never received any payment for them. In a similar way, imagine an author writes books set in Cornwall and their books are really, really popular in Cornwall with stacks of borrows there but not as widely distributed around the country, their PLR payment would not be reflective of true borrows if Cornwall wasn’t included in the sample. Mind you, this could work the other way as, if Cornwall was included, their borrows would be skewed more favourably.

For me, after years of not receiving any PLR payments despite having titles in libraries, it was very exciting to get my first statement after joining Boldwood due to my books being available throughout the UK.

There isn’t a bottomless pool of money from which payments can be made so the amount an author can receive is capped. The payment big name authors receive therefore won’t be reflective of the number of borrows on their titles. My earnings are lovely but I’m several years off hitting the cap … if ever!

Libraries are such an amazing resource for those on limited budgets, those who need large print books, and a variety of other circumstances and it’s wonderful that a scheme like this exists because it does mean that the author receives some income from many months of hard work.

Are there similar schemes around the world?

Yes, but they only work within each country for authors based in that country. Unfortunately, this means that UK-based authors don’t receive any payment for books borrowed in libraries outside of the UK&I. (If there are any authors reading this who know differently, please let me know but this is what all my research has concluded!)

I am aware that my books are accessible in libraries around the world, both digitally and physically, because readers excitedly tell me they’ve borrowed them. Does this mean I receive no payment whatsoever when someone borrows a book/ebook/audiobook overseas? Not far from it…

The library overseas will have bought the initial copy/copies so I’d have had a small royalty payment on that (which is pence) but that’s it. No further payment. No PLR. No other scheme. Therefore my books could be borrowed thousands of times worldwide and I won’t see another penny for it. Eek! As followers of my blog know, I’m always honest about the highs and lows of being an author so I’ll admit that this is a low and I do struggle with the idea that, beyond that initial one-off royalty payment, there’s no income.

Being an author is such a funny profession because books – which give so much pleasure, excitement, comfort etc. etc. – wouldn’t exist without the author yet we are stung left right and centre when it comes to earning an income from our work. Let’s move away from overseas libraries and talk about buying books to further illustrate this. The author only receives a small fraction of what the reader pays for a book in any format after the distributor (e.g. Amazon, supermarket or bookshop) and publisher and agent (if the author has one – I don’t) take their cut, but we know this is how it works. I would not for one moment begrudge any of the payment Boldwood receive from my books as what they have done for me in building my profile, finding me readers and enabling me to live my dream as a full-time author is priceless. Indie authors cut out the publisher and agent payments so earn a great proportion of the price but they still have big expenses to harbour which the publisher would normally cover – such as an editor and cover designer – and they need to invest a lot of time and money into advertising/marketing to get noticed (which the publisher should also provide for their authors).

For some reason, despite a cost of living crisis where everything has gone up in price, ebooks haven’t. I am personally of the view that ebooks should be cheaper than printed copies because there aren’t the same production and distribution costs involved in the production of an ebook as there are for a print copy BUT I have never been comfortable with the 99p ebook. Or the £1.99 ebook. I’m not even comfortable with a £2.99 ebook as it is still less than the cost of a decent coffee in Costa / Starbucks / Other-Coffee-Shops-Are-Available but lasts for hours rather than minutes and is still available once consumed. And it took months to create. I cringe when I see posts on social media from readers asking for the best places to find 99p or free ebooks and the huge number of responses of how to ‘beat the system’ and never pay for books at all. Seriously? Do these readers actually hate authors? Do they want authors to stop writing because they can’t afford to continue?

Being an author – and perhaps being a musician – are the only careers I can think of where some consumers are completely unwilling to pay for the product they claim to love and where there is an expectation that the product should be available for free. Would they expect a plumber to fix the blockage in their drain for free? Would they think it was acceptable to walk out of the supermarket with the monthly shop without paying? Then please pay the author for their work!

I’m chuckling to myself now as this was meant to be a thank you post and an explanation of PLR but I’ve gone off on a little tangent so I’ll leave it there and close with a virtual thank you hug to those who contributed to my most recent PLR payment. And, as I had a little rant about low priced books and those who don’t pay for books at all, I’d also like to extend that big hug to those who obtain their books in a way in which the author gets paid – for buying a new copy of the book in whatever format or through paying for subscription services like Prime Reading, Kindle Unlimited and Audible. If you want your favourite authors to keep writing, please keep doing these things as it’s a sad reality that no income means no more books.

Big grateful hugs
Jessica xx