Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Nothing Wrong With Him That $100 Won't Fix


One of these days I hope to have a book published that has multiple copies in the library. Not just for the recognition, or the ability to casually lead friends to the correct aisle in the library when we're all getting together for drinks in the library ... okay, maybe not. But there is a chance I'll get paid, thanks to the Public Lending Right program.

The Age newspaper tells me that I can earn $1.47 per book, although it's not clear how that relates to the number of times it's been borrowed. Looking through the list, Matthew Reilly is doing pretty well for himself, but then he's doing far, far better in the bookstores. I'd venture to say he was paid the highest amount from the PLR program, at somewhere between "$80,000- $89,999."

But out of the "$7.090 million in the 2006-07 financial year" that went to publishers and "8866 eligible writers", I have a feeling I may slot into the largest bracket "of authors, 2466," who "got only between $100 and $199."

Things could be worse, though. I might earn less than $50 a year, which would be no skin off anyone's back, since "Amounts of less than $50 are not payable."

Lucky I'm in this for the love of it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Daniel,
having just registered for this, I believe how it works is that they pay once there are at least 50 copies of your book in libraries (hence why you'd get at least $50), and it doesn't matter how often they're borrowed (which stuffed up my plan to send all my friends on a borrowing spree).
cheers,
Katherine.

Daniel Hatadi said...

That makes sense. Thanks for sharing, Katherine!

Mary said...

It's all about the love :-)