Changes fall short for author

Some writers say lib­rary pay­ments still don’t fairly com­pensate them for use of their books

A Palmer­ston North author believes changes to a gov­ern­ment fund that pays people with books held in lib­rar­ies don’t go far enough to fairly com­pensate writers.

Internal Affairs Min­is­ter Brooke van Velden last month announced changes to the Pub­lic Lend­ing Right for New Zea­l­and Authors scheme, lower­ing the eli­gib­il­ity threshold so more authors would be com­pensated for the use of their books in lib­rar­ies.

Pre­vi­ously 50 cop­ies of an author’s book had to be avail­able across lib­rar­ies to be paid by the Gov­ern­ment scheme. Now it has been lowered to 30 cop­ies and about 170 extra authors are expec­ted to be included.

Roger McE­wan, who writes under the pen name Riley Chance, wel­comed the changes but wanted them to go fur­ther.

“It’s tinker­ing around the edges. It’s not noth­ing but it’s not really any­thing.”

He said the fund was cre­ated in 1972, start­ing at $1 mil­lion, and although it had increased to $2.4m now, it hadn’t been adjus­ted for infla­tion. If it had kept pace with infla­tion he believed it should be $17m, from which he would receive about $2500 a year to cover costs such as proofread­ing or cover design.

About 60 cop­ies of his books were in lib­rar­ies, earn­ing him a few hun­dred dol­lars a year. The scheme only covered phys­ical books, not e-books or audiobooks. McE­wan believed they should be included because they were pop­u­lar ways for people to read or listen to books today.

He said lower­ing the threshold would only share the same amount of money among more authors, “cut­ting the pie into smal­ler pieces”.

In a state­ment, van Velden said dur­ing engage­ment about the fund, people were aware the size of it was not under review and 77.1% of respond­ents sup­por­ted the idea of lower­ing the eli­gib­il­ity threshold.

“The changes made reflect what we heard from authors and I am pleased to be deliv­er­ing on them.”

She said the work was inten­ded to be about what was achiev­able in this par­lia­ment­ary term.

“That meant that broader changes, such as expand­ing the scope to include digital books, were not part of this review, as it would take more time to develop and imple­ment.”

She said she had been clear her pri­or­ity was to ensure the exist­ing money was used in the best way.

“These changes strike a bal­ance by broad­en­ing access, while also ensur­ing the fund remains sus­tain­able.”

The New Zea­l­and Soci­ety of Authors chief exec­ut­ive Jenny Nagle wel­comed the change, but said it was less than the soci­ety had been advoc­at­ing for, and it was still wait­ing for the recom­mend­a­tions of a 2022 report to be imple­men­ted. She said the gov­ern­ment was tak­ing goods and ser­vices and not com­pens­at­ing the prop­erty owner.

“It means authors are the ones pay­ing for most of that access and the small fund that [Pub­lic Lend­ing Right] dis­trib­utes has not met infla­tion, giv­ing authors an annual pay cut. In this digital age, when over one-third of lib­rary bor­row­ing is digital edi­tions, there is no com­pens­a­tion for that at all.”

Van Velden referred the Man­awatū Stand­ard to a state­ment by the Lib­rary and Inform­a­tion Asso­ci­ation of New Zea­l­and that wel­comed the changes as a bal­ance between improv­ing equity and main­tain­ing a sus­tain­able, prac­tical scheme.

“Lower­ing the threshold will provide greater access for emer­ging authors, authors from smal­ler or inde­pend­ent pub­lish­ers, regional authors and those writ­ing for spe­cial­ist or local audi­ences who may not pre­vi­ously have met the eli­gib­il­ity threshold.”