Having malingered, gleefully, for the full holiday period, this has been my first week back at the desk – and I’ve just had some brilliant news.

My PLR statement has arrived. PLR stands for Public Lending Right – a count of how many times my books are borrowed from libraries each year. Of course PLR is about money: fyi, each time someone takes home Black Tat or Tim from their local library I get a little over 6p. But to me, it’s more about how many readers I’m reaching. And for someone who’s only been in this ‘published author’ game since 2006, the figures are very encouraging…

The Black Tattoo was borrowed 4,694 times in the last year – that’s just here in the UK. I’m also delighted to say that Tim, Defender of the Earth is hot on its heels, at 3,767 times. Of course, Crawlers won’t have been out for a full year by the time of my next statement (the launch isn’t ’til April). But come next January you can bet I’ll be waiting anxiously to hear just how the youngest of my mutant offspring has been doing in libraries.

Being able to try books out for free at my local library has played a MASSIVE part in making me the reader and writer I am today. So the fact that my own books are in libraries right now, doing (I hope) the same for other people… that gives me an enormous thrill.

A HUGE thank you to librarians everywhere for the amazing jobs you do. And a very Happy New Year to you, reading this.

I’m glad to have got 2009 out of the way, aren’t you? Here’s to 2010, and whatever (else) it brings. 😀

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Comments? Suggestions? Questions? Me and THE WEBSPHINX would love to hear from you! Drop us a line at the Tim, Defender of the Earth Guestbook for current or Tim stuff, or The Black Tattoo Guestbook for Black Tat stuff. First (or demon-!) names only, please. 😉