What PLR and ALCS can do for you
4 Sep 2012

David Craig, the author of GREED UNLIMITED How Cameron and Clegg protect the elites while squeezing the rest of us (Original Book Company £8.99), explains how registering for PLR and with the ALCS can bring into extra revenue.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a piece here about how writers could earn extra money by joining Amazon Associates. Here I’d like to mention a couple of other extra sources of pocket money for writers

– PLR and ALCS.

Public Lending Right (PLR) is the right for authors to receive payment under PLR legislation for the loans of their books by public libraries. To qualify for payment, applicants must apply to register their books at www.plr.co.uk. Registration is free and payments are made annually on the basis of loans data collected from a sample of public libraries in the UK.

The Authors’ Lending and Copyright Society (ALCS) collects fees for authors whose books are photocopied or scanned by educational institutions and government agencies. If your books, or magazines and journals containing your work are available to be photocopied or scanned in schools, universities, businesses, public sector bodies or libraries then you may be entitled to a share of the income collected. You can join the ALCS at www.alcs.co.uk. Joining the ALCS costs £25 for a lifetime membership, though it is free if you are a member of the Society of Authors.

With the PLR, you only get fees for the year in which you join and subsequent years. But with the ALCS, you get all income accumulated in the years before joining.

Unless you are already a multimillionaire bestselling writer, neither the PLR nor the ALCS are likely to make you rich. But, as with joining Amazon Associates, they may provide you with a little extra pocket money for your holidays.