getting paid
Summary
Blogger: NiiRole: Senior Editor
Area: Fiction & Poetry
Original Career: Scientist
Editor of the main poetry imprints until 2007, now focussing on fiction. Editor since 2001 » »
Books
As Editor:14-2: twenty eight love poems
Dance the Guns to Silence (with Kadija Sesay)
x-24: unclassified (with Tash Aw) mouthmark series
waterways poetry
lubin & kleyner
As Author:
eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999)
This week we’ve had two calls from people wanting to use poems from our authors books in class and asking us about copyright. Now, this is one of the basic and most interesting things about copyright – it belongs to the author. You talk to the publisher if you want to publish something from the book, in which case we STILL have to get the author’s agreement. The way in which authors make money from the use of their work in schools and from library loans, is by registering with the bodies that monitor such use. In the UK we have PLR (Public Lending Rights) for libraries and ALCS for things like photocopies in schools as well as use in other countries (mainly Europe); PLR pay a fixed amount to the author every time their book is taken out of the library, while ALCS use a sampling system to work out how much an author’s work is photocopied etc. Last year, in my writer guise I made over £40 from ALCS and PLR – it may not sound like a lot, but when you consider – for example – that most poets get an advance in the low hundreds of pounds (if at all), it’s an absolute fortune. That’s why my advice to most authors as soon as we release a book is, go and register with PLR and ALCS – otherwise you never know what you’re missing »»
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to our feed.
| Comment Shortcut