Royalties

It's grand to be an author in Europe. Every time a reader checks your book out of the library, it's money in your pocket. What a brilliant idea.

The Irish Writers' Union lobbied for such a law, and it looks like their wish is about to be granted. So every time that a library patron checks out a book, the cash register in the author's royalty account will cha-ching. Quite the bonus, considering that the library paid into the royalties by purchasing the book to begin with, and now the writer gets even more.

There'll be no cash register at the front desk of the library, however. The Exchequer, with its Celtic Tiger abundance of revenues, will be responsible for cutting the checks. Imagine how off-putting that would be, to hand the books to the librarian for processing and she tells you that'll be twenty-five cents. And what about those of us who read three or four books every week? It adds up, all those pennies. Much better to have the government do the paying, and add in those pennies to our taxes where we're not so likely to notice them and therefore not likely to protest.

While pushing for the new law, the writier's union was also in favor of government payments, and wisely so. Given the limited budgets that libraries must operate within, they could have saved quite a bit by not buying anything by Irish authors. No need to worry about royalties and keeping track and mailing the check on the first of the month. For people like Colm Toibin or Maeve Binchy, however, it would mean a decline in sales and a drop in royalties, which is the exact opposite of what they're trying to achieve.

In a complex bit of bureaucracy, the royalty project will be plugged into the Department of the Environment, where the Library Council will then administer the program. There'll be new software needed, of course, to the tune of 600,000 euro. Once that's in place, then the government projects costs of 1.1 million euro per year to run the program. Oh, and there's the expense of the royalties in there as well. What are the chances that it will cost much, much more to administer this grand scheme than what gets paid to the authors? Wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to subsidize creative writers? Just throw some money at them at the end of the year, or give them a tax break on the royalties they get from the publishers.

Does this mean that book exchange groups will be operating outside of the law? What of those who buy a book and then pass it around within their discussion circle? Someone should alert Michael Smith, Minister for Trade and Commerce. There's a revenue source out there that really should be tapped. Who'd have guessed? A black market in borrowed books, springing up all over Ireland in a bid to beat the tax man.