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Who is the Mugger, Pray, and Who the Mug? (fao UK authors)
If you're a member of the ALCS - the body that licenses educational institutions to copy and use writing for academic purposes - you should probably take a look at this.
In brief, the Government is proposing to scrap all fees for educational copying, and hence all licensing income for authors. Since most journals do not pay their authors, and the amount of paid time officially allocated for research for academics* is about a quarter of that actually spent (judging by my own case), the annual cheque for £120 or so has been very welcome, not least as a reminder that someone out there is reading and using one's work.
It used of course to be said that academics were "paid in promotion" for the time they put into scholarship. Well, twenty-one years, two monographs, two edited collections, a scholarly edition, numerous articles, chapters and introductions, an international research project, and six novels later, I'm still waiting to see the truth of that one. Not that I'm bitter...
* Of course, by no means all the authors of material copied by universities and other educational institutions are paid to do research at all.
In brief, the Government is proposing to scrap all fees for educational copying, and hence all licensing income for authors. Since most journals do not pay their authors, and the amount of paid time officially allocated for research for academics* is about a quarter of that actually spent (judging by my own case), the annual cheque for £120 or so has been very welcome, not least as a reminder that someone out there is reading and using one's work.
It used of course to be said that academics were "paid in promotion" for the time they put into scholarship. Well, twenty-one years, two monographs, two edited collections, a scholarly edition, numerous articles, chapters and introductions, an international research project, and six novels later, I'm still waiting to see the truth of that one. Not that I'm bitter...
* Of course, by no means all the authors of material copied by universities and other educational institutions are paid to do research at all.
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It was always on the cards with this govt, of course. We can hope, but we don't have much clout, sadly.
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Maybe I'll just give up writing, reviewing and research!
Sigh :o(
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That's a nice idea about the letter. The individual payments are derisory of course, but over the course of a year they build up into a useful (though not large) sum.
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Only a blockhead...
Also, six novels? Where can I find one? (I think I know your name, but maybe not.)
Re: Only a blockhead...
There is nothing like this in the US. In fact during a recent exchange with you elsewhere I had no idea what to make of your mentioning fees paid for using library books and was baffled. and I was largely educated by British trained scholars, too, but they never mentioned anything of the kind, even in passing.
Re: Only a blockhead...
'Distinguished' is pushing it! But, ever eager for new readers, I've put a list in my reply to
In my experience, academics are very slow to know about these schemes. The PLR scheme we talked about before applies only to borrowings from public libraries, and since most academic tomes are in university libraries it wouldn't earn more than a few pennies for most academics - or so they may believe. My novelist friends are generally well aware of it, however. What's more surprising is that many UK academics aren't aware of the ALCS either...
Re: Only a blockhead...
Only the first two were published in the States...
The Darkling
Timon's Tide
And these are the others...
Calypso Dreaming
The Fetch of Mardy Watt
Death of a Ghost
The Lurkers
Of course I like them all, but if I had to recommend one or two, I think I might go for The Fetch of Mardy Watt (if you prefer essentially upbeat), or Death of a Ghost (if not).
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Re: Only a blockhead...
Re: Only a blockhead...