PLR for Ebooks

Public Lending Right (PLR) is on its way for ebooks. Until now only ebooks downloaded on library premises, to fixed terminals and then taken away on loan have qualified for PLR payments. Legislation was passed last month (April 2017), in the Digital Economy Bill, which extends the UK Public Lending Right legislation to include remote loans of ebooks. These new arrangements are expected to apply to loans from July 1st 2018, with the first payments being made in arrears in February 2020.

I have written previously about how to get self-published ebooks into public libraries via the distributor Overdrive but there are a couple of things to bear in mind before rushing off to do so:

It is not possible to keep an ebook in KDP Select and make it available through other channels e.g. public library loans
Under PLR legislation, loans are collected using ISBNs. Many of the ebooks published through Kindle Direct Publishing have only the Amazon assigned ASIN.

So, this is good news for a lot of authors, who will, in the future, get recompensed for ebook loans. Others will have to take decisions about whether it’s better to stay exclusive to Amazon in KDP Select with its marketing/Kindle Unlimited benefits or go wide to other ebook distributors and obtain an ISBN.

Any traditionally-published/self-published authors have an opinion on this new legislation?

Amazon KDP, E-book, e-publishing, ISBN, KDP Select, Overdrive, PLR, Public Lending Right

This entry was posted on May 24, 2017, 9:07 am and is filed under Self-publishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

#1 by juliathorley on May 25, 2017 - 11:37 am

I saw this on the ALCS website when I registered my latest ‘Smallholder’ article. It’s an interesting development, and once again brings into focus the stranglehold Amazon has on the market.

- #2 by Sally Jenkins on May 25, 2017 - 12:51 pm
  
  Hi Julia – agreed about the stranglehold Amazon has on the market – it’s not healthy!
  
#3 by doreenhillier on May 27, 2017 - 2:12 pm

Hello Sally I am back in England at David Gough’s for a month – returning to Canada June 27th. I do hope to see you while I am here.

Thanks for sending me your updates – I enjoy them.

Doreen Hillier

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- #4 by Sally Jenkins on May 27, 2017 - 6:54 pm
  
  Lovely to hear from you, Doreen & glad you enjoy the blog. Will contact you directly about meeting up.