Lending Royalties

[ishtat]

Every 6 months or so a moderately successful childrens author I know receives a cheque for her "Lending Royalties." It usually amounts to a thousand dollars or therabouts and is collected by her Union (Australian Writers Guild). The Guild incidentally takes a 40% commission to pay for their collection costs and all of the Royalties are in respect of hard copy books borrowed from Public Libraries in various parts of the world.

Do these rights to royalties exist in most places and have Lit authors had much success with collections?

This might also be an appropriate place to consider 'E' authors lending rights as well and particularly Amazons Dual system as I haven't seen a general discussion on the topic recently.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Smashwords has a Library distribution channel...

Library Channels

We currently offer three channels for sale to public libraries (with more to come): Library Direct, Baker & Taylor's Axis360 and OverDrive. When a book is sold to a library, through either channel, the library acquires the book permanently into its collection, and may check out each copy of the book that it has acquired to one patron at a time, with no simulataneous checkouts. If you later remove your book from Smashwords, or opt-out of Library distribution, the library will still maintain the perpetual right to lend it out to patrons because they purchased the book, much in the same way that if you sell a print book to a library or an ebook through an ebook retailer, you cannot take it away after the fact. See the Pricing Manager for futher details, and to set library-specific pricing for your books.

Library Direct is for large bulk opening purchases by individual public libraries who operate their own library ebook checkout systems (the act of a library operating their own ebook checkout systems is typically referred to as the Douglas County Model, which named after the large library network in Colorado that pioneered this model. Click here to view our Library Direct announcement.

Baker and Taylor's Axis360 operates hosted library ebook checkout systems. Libraries purchase the ebook from Axis360 and Axis 360 hosts the book for the library, and manages the ebook checkouts.

OverDrive (New!!!) - Smashwords announced distribution to OverDrive on May 20, 2014. OverDrive operates the ebook checkout and procurement systems for more than 20,000 public libraries around the world. OverDrive accepts all Smashwords Premium Catalog titles except erotica. View the announcement here.

Royalties vary...

Baker & Taylor (Axis360 library platform): 45% of the list price. Library patrons are able to check out only one copy at a time. The books are wrapped in DRM so they time out after a specific period of time. The library can purchase multiple copies if they decide demand warrants multiple simultaneous checkouts. Otherwise, the library purchases a single copy and allows only once copy at a time to be lent out. If a library patron wishes to obtain a book that's already checked out, the patron is sometimes given the option to purchase a copy through a retailer.

OverDrive: 45% of list price. Library patrons are able to check out only one copy at a time. The books are wrapped in DRM so they time out after a specific period of time. The library can purchase multiple copies if they decide demand warrants multiple simultaneous checkouts. Otherwise, the library purchases a single copy and allows only once copy at a time to be lent out until the checkout period expires. If a library patron wishes to obtain a book that's already checked out, the patron is sometimes given the option to purchase a copy direct through OverDrive (for libraries that utilize OverDrive's "Buy it Now" feature).

Smashwords Library Direct (Bulk library sales, direct from Smashwords by special arrangement): 70% list price.

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