Authors marched on Downing Street yesterday demanding a 50% rise in their royalties - from 2p to 3p for each time one of their books is borrowed from a public library.
It was more of an amble than a protest march, and the leaders, with their petition signed by more than 4,000 authors, were invited in for a civilised chat with the arts minister Alan Howarth, while the rest of the delegation, including the agony aunt and bestselling author Claire Rayner, serial Booker prize nominee Beryl Bainbridge, and royal biographer Philip Ziegler, sloped off to a pub to await developments.
The Society of Authors secretary, Mark Le Fanu, said Mr Howarth was sympathetically non-commital. "We pointed out fairly forcefully that the public lending rights scheme was a Labour success, introduced in the dying days of the Callaghan government after the Tory backbenchers scuppered various measures in the 1970s, but that the funding hasn't been touched for seven years. The engine is still motoring along nicely, but the gas is running out."
The authors, led by the novellist Deborah Moggach, chairwoman of the society, are calling for an immediate increase in the royalties fund from £5m to £7m a year.
The petition is a roll call of the best known British authors, including Martin Amis, Alan Bennett, Malcolm Bradbury, AS Byatt, Sebastian Faulks, Alan Ayckbourn, Pam Ayres, Antonia Fraser, John Fowles, PD James, John Mortimer and Tom Stoppard.
The society's figures show that the tiny royalties are a lifeline to some of the poorest authors: a recent survey showed that 46% of British authors earn less than £5,000 a year.
Because the royalties reflect the books that readers borrow, rather than the hyped best- seller list, the scheme provides a small but steady income to many authors who have never made it on to bestseller lists, or dropped off the list years ago.
The sum any one author can earn from the scheme is capped at £6,000 a year, to prevent the entire fund being paid over to the estate of the late Catherine Cookson. Although her books no longer appear on bestseller lists, of the top 20 borrowed books in 1998-1999, 12 were by Cookson.
Over a third of the public lending rights royalties go to children's authors, who rarely make it on to bestseller lists. JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, does not make it to the top of the borrowing list, presumably because the market is already saturated with books sold.
Mr Le Fanu said the society had asked authors if they felt the £6,000 limit should also be raised. "It was really rather touching - the richer authors were adamant that they didn't want any more money from the scheme, they wanted the payments spread wider. We thought that was another thing that might appeal to Labour."
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