Dividing the spoils

As tomorrow's the last day to register your books for PLR, here's a quick reminder of how to work out the share you should register as yours.

• 100% if you wrote all the book and it is not illustrated, or if you wrote the book and illustrated it and no other author or illustrator was involved
• 50% if you wrote OR illustrated a picture book
• 80% of the text share if you retold or adapted an existing book AND the original author is named on the title page; 100% of the text share if the original author is not named on the title page
• a %age of the text share if you co-wrote a book; the %age must reflect your contribution (so if you wrote one of four stories, for instance, your share would be 25%)
• a %age of the whole if you wrote or illustrated a book and the illustrator/author is named on the title page; the %age must reflect your contribution. Unless it is a picture book (50:50) the author's share is likely to be more than half, reflecting the balance of text:pictures and should be agreed with the other party/parties
• 30% of the text share of a translation
• 20% if you edited the book and contributed at least 10% or 10 pages of the material
• 50% if you compiled a book from different sources and did a good deal of work on it, including adding some original text
• 80% if you compiled a book for primary sources and the work took many years of research and included additional original writing.

And finally:

• if other contributors are dead you can't claim their share
• if other contributors live abroad you can't claim their share
• if you are not named on the title page OR entitled to a royalty, and others are named on the title page, you can't claim anything
• if you are not named on the title page BUT neither is anyone else, you generally can claim a share.

If unsure, register what you think and query because if you miss registering while waiting for an answer you can't register late. You can only register books that are actually published - a book that comes out in July (yes, I have one too) can't be registered until next year.

Now, go claim your money. You'll get the filthy dosh in February.