Canada. (Though I think it's in other countries too).
I know about Public Lending Rights because of the amazing Billeh Nickerson. I've known Billeh for, what, like 8 years? I think we met at a Vancouver Writer's Festival event. My fondest memory is of the first time he took me to a gay bar and bought me a beer with a shot of Amaretto in it and told me it was like Root Beer. Gay Root Beer. It was. Then when I proved to be too sleepy for more partying he put me in a cab and sent me home. What a gentleman.
If I was ever to become a tall gay man, I would become Billeh. He's basically by gay west coast doppelgänger. Or I'm his. One of the two. Anyway. In addition to being a great writer Billeh was one of the first writers I ever met who already had the skinny on all the little bureaucratic things writers need to know about the business of writing and getting paid for it.
Two of the first things Billeh told me about were: Public Lending Rights and CanCopy.
And so, on the day I receive (from PLR) - I give.
Here's what you need to know.
Public Lending Rights
"The Public Lending Right (PLR) Commission distributes annual payments to Canadian authors for the presence of their books in Canadian public libraries."
If you have a book published in Canada. You need to go to the PLR website and register said book. Go here and it gives you all the how. It also tells you how to add new books. Registration period: 15 February to 1 May 2012. You gotta do it by post cuz it's old skool.
Essentially, the PLR program does a sampling of library catalogues. What you get paid depends on the number of books each you have registered, the number of times each of the books was found and the PLR payment budget. Other things get factored in including your percentage share, how much money they have, whether your book was in an urban centre, and so on.
It's money for your book being in a library. Go get it.
Access Copyright
Here's the other source, which also contains a lot more info on copyright stuff if you want to look into that.
Access Copyright gives you access to compensation for your work being copied/used by schools, businesses and governments.
"By registering with Access Copyright, you'll be paid whenever we find your works copied under one of our licences. Through our licensing framework, Access Copyright provides users with access to valuable content while passing the royalties on to creators - like you.
- Registration is free
- Receive royalties when your works are copied and reported to Access Copyright
- Become eligible for PaybackTM (click here for more info)"
Again, you have to register. Just go here. Under creators you get all the info you need re becoming an affiliate.
So there it is.
Also, you should be applying for grants. Are you? You should be.
In other news, I spent the weekend on the back of a motorcycle. What bliss.
More soon.
xo mariko