Another year and another check in with the UK library service, as my Public Lending Right numbers for 2019 are tallied up! As always, my thanks to all the hard-working people in our libraries for supporting this vital part of our culture.
Libraries made books available to me when I was growing up and couldn’t afford them, and every writer (not to mention editor, illustrator and all the other folks involved in making books happen) owes them a debt not just for stimulating readers but also for the magic of the PLR…
Here’s my regular PSA on the PLR:
If you are a writer/editor/illustrator/etc, a resident of the UK or Ireland and you ever need a reason for donating your books to the library – on top of all the obvious ones like promoting reading and supporting this valuable and increasingly undermined public service – this is it.
The PLR is a system where authors who’ve written books that are in public libraries get a little revenue each time somebody borrows their works. It’s a way to repay writers who won’t be earning a royalty from a sale in a bookstore.
The PLR office pay a nominal fee based on how borrowed you were – and in the interests of fairness, you can’t earn more than around £6000, so the big names don’t get to hog all the money.
The PLR and our libraries are constantly under threat from government cutbacks, so if you are a writer or a reader, please do your bit to help support both as best you can.
Here’s my Top Ten Library Loans of my novels for 2019 (with 2018’s position in brackets)
1 (-) Ghost
2 (2) Exile
3 (1) Nomad
4 (3) Garro: Weapon of Fate
5 (4) Sisters of Battle: The Omnibus
6 (5) Ghost in the Shell
7 (6) Peacemaker
8 (-) Sight Unseen
9 (10) The Poisoned Chalice
10 (9) Deadline
Ghost joined my Marc Dane thrillers Nomad and Exile at the top of the chart this year, with a combined 27,589 loans! Most of the rest of the chart stayed the same as last year, just shifted down a place, but out of nowhere my Star Trek Titan novel Sight Unseen (first published back in 2015) popped up to take the #8 spot. And once more, Jack Bauer shows that he’s a hard man to get rid of, as my 24 novel Deadline stayed in the top ten for the 5th year in a row!
As always, thank you to everyone who supports their local libraries and borrowed my books in 2019!
