‘Dear Brooke, make my wish come true’

Photo by Emil Widlund on Unsplash

I’m getting my Christmas wish list in early. I don’t want golf clubs, diamonds or a pony I can ride twice. I have two simple wishes for this Christmas, both to do with the dear old Public Lending Right.

I dream of the modern equivalent of a cheque in time for Christmas from the PLR. But I know with certainty the precise amount that I – and most authors – will receive: nothing. This is despite me having around 160 copies of my books in public libraries.

The scheme needs to change. I doubt anyone thinks otherwise. I don’t need anything more for Christmas than these two wishes.

First wish: Lower the book threshold to 10

Authors need 50 copies of each book held in libraries across the motu to qualify. Unless you’ve spent time on the bestsellers list, good luck getting that kind of reach. Ten is a sensible number, and it would mean the scheme becomes cumulative by default (for most authors).

It’s an accessible number that recognises writing and publishing a book is hard – and having 10 copies of a book in public libraries is worth celebrating (and remunerating).

Second wish: Cap the payout

I’m using Jacinda Ardern to explain this wish. She’s just published a high-profile book that will sail over the 50-copy limit by a country mile. When I looked, there were 137 copies of her book in Auckland libraries alone. I don’t know if she is registered in the PLR scheme – it doesn’t matter. Jacinda’s situation is illustrative.

The way the scheme operates means Aotearoa’s most successful authors vacuum up the lion’s share of the PLR pie. I’m assuming that Jacinda is doing okay financially. If she and Clark aren’t, there’s probably a tell-all sequel coming. Capping the payments of authors already doing well simply means there’s more pie left for the rest of the author community. Jacinda doesn’t need a thick slice of PLR pie.

This is how the equivalent scheme in the UK operates. The maximum an author can receive is £6600. It’s a healthy amount. If there wasn’t a cap, imagine the eye-watering piece of pie billionaire author J.K. Rowling would get.

This wish isn’t about punishing success. It’s about sharing the limited resources of a public scheme fairly. The Aotearoa PLR pie is unimpressive. But a token of financial recognition – no matter how small – says, thanks for helping fill our libraries with stories from Aotearoa.

My two wishes should require minimal system changes to implement. I started out my working life as a computer programmer – these changes are at the 101 level. They’re not hard. They simply require a focus on progress, not motion.

And so to Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden, I say: Put on a funny hat and get into the Christmas spirit. Forget the road cones – they’re fine. Give the Public Lending Right Advisory Group a rev-up, the Parliamentary Counsel Office is waiting for its call and the Governor-General has her pen poised. This Christmas, give us a PLR scheme that starts to reflect the diversity of Aotearoa’s writing community.

Deal?