The government of Ireland has hatched a plan that will pay authors a royalty for their books that are checked out at the local library.
Here is how it works:
“authors will be conferred with an exclusive right to allow the lending of their works in public libraries…in return the authors would receive a royalty payment for the lending of their work.”
The program will be publicly funded and will not cost the library user anything.
I have often thought that this arrangement should also apply in the used book market.
There is no reason an author shouldn’t be compensated for a sale of a used copy of their work. It is not a technology issue since the same technology that tracks the sales of new books can track the sale of used ones too.
Take the remainder market as an example. It seems that a large percentage of newly published books get remaindered. I doubt the author gets any royalties when one of their books are remaindered. Those books are then sucked back into the world by both new and used bookshops and actively sold.
A few years down the road after a later book gets some recognition the demand is ignited for the writer’s earlier work. Their publisher brings back in print the backlist, most probably in paper which garners a lower royalty, while the hundreds or thousands of the remaindered hardbacks fly off the shelves of used bookstores.
Remainders further muddy the waters because they are “new” books yet they make up a percentage (in some cases a large percentage) of the inventory of many used bookstore’s.
The logistics for such a program might seem impossible but it is worth exploring. At minimum the royalty can be put in a benevolent fund for all authors. If a need arises they can apply for help. The ABAA (Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America) has such a fund which is funded by donations from its members.
I know the National Writer’s Union offers an array of services to their members and it might include a fund like this. Unfortunately, the NWU has only 3,500 members. There were over 150,000 new books published in 2005 alone. That is far from universal coverage.