My PLR Top Ten, July 2010 - June 2011

Every year the Public Lending Right sends registered authors a statement estimating how many times their books were borrowed from UK libraries. To compensate for lost sales, the PLR pays about six pence per loan. There's a maximum payment threshold [£6600] to prevent immensely popular authors from draining the PLR's coffers.

More than 23,000 authors will get payments for the most recent PLR period [July 2010-June 2011], with just over 360 on the maximum amount. I’m a minnow in such matters, but can look forward to a wee three-figure payment next month. My total's way down from last year as I've been concentrating on screenwriting, not prose.

That's despite the fact I've been concentrating on screenwriting rather than novels and non-fiction books. Shifting my focus elsewhere means my top ten tomes bear a startling resemblance to what they were this time last year. But some of my old comics work has been reprinted in graphic novels, rewriting my usual PLR Top 10.

Straight in at number one is a Judge Dredd comics album, Heavy Metal Dredd, while third place goes to the Fiends of the Eastern Front strip compilation featuring Stalingrad, a story I wrote with art by Colin MacNeil. Beyond that, the usual suspects from my fiction backlist continue to dominate the library borrowings.

My four Fiends novels and the omnibus edition of the Eastern Front trilogy continue to attract readers, as do my Nikolai Dante tales and the Dante novel omnibus. Last time my long forgotten Michael Caine non-fiction tome made a sudden reappearance. Well, it's back again, along with one edition of The Complete Inspector Morse.

Anyway, here's my top ten tomes for July 2010 - June 2011 (with previous year's placing in brackets):-

1. (-) Heavy Metal Dredd (Apr 09)
2. (1) Fiends of the Rising Sun (Jul 07)
3. (-) Fiends of the Eastern Front (graphic novel, Oct 10)
4. (2) A Massacre in Marienburg (published Dec 08)
5. (5) Fiends of the Eastern Front: The Blood Red Army (Apr 06)
6. (-) The Complete Inspector Morse (first edition, 2002)
7. (9) Starring Michael Caine (Aug 03)
8. (3) Fiends of the Eastern Front: Operation Vampyr (Oct 05)
9. (10) Nikolai Dante: Imperial Black (Sep 05)
10. (6) From Russia With Lust: Nikolai Dante omnibus (Apr 07)

Bubbling under - Fiends of the Eastern Front omnibus (down from 4th last year); Fiends of the Eastern Front: Twilight of the Dead (down from 8th); and A Nightmare on Elm Street (wasn't even bubbling under last year).