Tweedlecoate Press

Publishing Made Easy

Public Lending Right (PLR)

The Public Lending Right (PLR) Scheme provides authors with an income of up to £6,600 a year from loans of their books from public libraries in the UK and pays out more than £6 million annually. The rate paid to authors for each loan is calculated by dividing the total money available by the estimated total annual number of loans in public libraries.

This is a Government initiative set up in 1979 in response to lobbying by the Society of Authors to give authors fair payment for readers accessing their books through public libraries.

The PLR Scheme currently specifies that the number of loans is to be determined by means of a sample, with data from 30 councils used to assist payment calculations. These new changes will see the British Library move towards collecting comprehensive loans data from all library authorities in the UK to ensure authors are getting their fair share.
  • Payment of 13.69p is made per loan of each book. (January 2024 – the rate varies each year)
  • Both physical books, and ebooks (since 1st July 2018) can be registered as long as each format has its own ISBN.
  • If a book goes out of print but a copy is still available in the library, it qualifies for payment till it falls apart.
  • Libraries in schools, academic institutions, prisons and hospitals are not included.
  • Paid annually direct to the author.

Registration is straightforward. The author, not the publisher, enters their details onto the Government website following the instructions. There is no fee for this. Tweedlecoate will provide all the data you need on request without charge.

Official PLR Site

Selling your book to the Library Service is a case of approaching the Acquisitions Librarian for the group of libraries of which you are a member, offering them a copy to read and asking if they will stock it. Libraries source their books through suppliers such as Askews and Holts, who have a partnership relationship with Nielson and Gardners. If the book has good reviews, you are in with a chance of them allocating funds for purchase. Books published with Tweedlecoate appear in their web based catalogue so they can be referenced easily and ordered along with other titles.

Please note: The annual closing date for receipt of applications for UK and Irish PLR is 30 June. Applications received after this date will be processed for the following PLR year.