First Book Resale Right Initiative Launched
LONDON, June 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) and Bookbarn International (BBI) are pleased to announce the launch of the Book Author Resale Right - a pilot programme that will compensate authors when their books are sold by second-hand book retailer - Bookbarn International.
To date, authors have not benefited from the sale of second-hand books in the UK, despite the increasing prominence of the second-hand book market. This collaboration between ALCS and BBI will see the authors of the second-hand books sold by BBI compensated for that sale alongside their regular payments from ALCS.
BBI sells hundreds of thousands of second-hand books a year and ALCS makes payments to over 60,000 authors annually from a wide variety of sources. William Pryor, Managing Director of BBI, an author and books industry veteran from a family of painters, took over the business with a colleague in January 2013. William was convinced that the principle of the Artists Resale Right, introduced in the UK in 2006, could be made to work for authors. He approached ALCS with the idea for the Book Author Resale Right. It will mean that BBI (and, it is hoped, similar businesses in the future) will pay authors a percentage of the net profit made selling their books second-hand. ALCS's positive response to the development of the initiative has led to its launch today.
"It didn't feel right that the creators of the goods my business deals in," says William Pryor, "should receive no part of the money their books generate when second-hand. The internet has had a significantly positive effect on the second-hand book business and I'm glad if we can share this at a time of significant uncertainty for writers."
Owen Atkinson, CEO of ALCS, said: "We are very happy to play our part in bringing the Book Authors Resale Right to life and feel this is a very positive step in ensuring authors are duly compensated for the on-going use of their works."
Editor's notes
About Bookbarn International
William Pryor and Matthew Dodson took over BBI in January 2013. The business is housed in a large shed in Somerset, 10 miles south of Bristol and west of Bath. Currently BBI owns and stores 800,000 books of which around 250,000 are antiquarian, rare or collectable. They have just opened the Full Stop Café on the premises, next to their significant retail operation selling 200,000 books at £1 each. BBI lists its catalogue on some 18 ecommerce websites around the world and has just signed a deal with a government-owned distributor that will see its books sold into China.
http://www.bookbarninternational.com
About ALCS
ALCS collects fees on behalf of the whole spectrum of UK writers: novelists, film & TV script writers, literary prize winners, poets, freelance journalists, translators and adaptors, as well as thousands of professional and academic writers who include nurses, lawyers, teachers, scientists and college lecturers. All writers are eligible to join ALCS: further details on membership can be found at http://www.alcs.co.uk. ALCS collects fees that are difficult, time-consuming or legally impossible for writers and their representatives to claim on an individual basis: money that is nonetheless due to them. Fees collected are distributed to writers twice a year in February and August. Since its inception, ALCS has distributed over £350 million to the nation's writers. For further information, contact alcs@alcs.co.uk or see http://www.alcs.co.uk
For further information, please contact:
William Pryor, Bookbarn International
+44(0)1761-451-777
william@bookbarninternational.com
Richard Combes, ALCS
+44(0)20-7264-5700
Richard.combes@alcs.co.uk
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