How to Create an Asset Register, a log of All Your Published Work, from Scratch.
Do you need to create an asset register or a log of all your published works to maximise your income as an writer, illustrator, etc.? Do you need a register of all your works so you can claim Public Lending Rights, DACS Payback, Secondary use Royalties and more? On this page you will find some tips and ideas on how to create an asset register, a log of all your published works, from scratch.
If you are not thinking yet that you need a good digital record of all your work then you seriously need to. It can’t be emphasize enough how important and useful it is to have a record of all your work. Setting an asset register up has proved to be invaluable and quite an eye opener for many an author, illustrator etc.
Why Bother?
That’s a very good question ….. let’s assume you are an author or illustrator of several books and have been publish in a magazine or two too. Each time you finish a book it gets assigned an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and each magazine you appear in will have an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) too. When we say every time we mean if one of your books came out as a hardback it would have an ISBN specific to that hardback, then there would be another ISBN when the paperback came out, then the board book, and then anytime the book was translated into another language, an ISBN for each book in each language in each format too. You could have written or illustrated only one book and have up to 40 or more ISBNs. Now do the same for each magazine you are published in and you can see the number of ISSNs and ISBNs suddenly start to make a mountain out of what you thought was a mole hill!
You will need a record of all your ISBNs and ISSNs to claim so called passive income for things like Public Lending Rights, Secondary use Royalties and more (please see separate articles on How to claim). We are all interested in earning passive income so that’s why we bother!
Please be aware that to qualify for PLR you should be named on the book’s title page or be entitled to a royalty payment from the publisher, but you do not have to own the copyright …. so no getting out of having a log of all your published work / asset register. The same applies to script writers, you should have a register of all your work too so you can claim for royalties for the re-transmission of your work, educational recording and private copying.
What information do I need?
In a nutshell every book published has a unique ISBN, every periodical an ISSN, and these are the most important single items that you should record from either. A book and publication log can be as simple as a list of your books and their ISBNs and the ISSNs of periodicals your work has appeared in, no more than that. However, over time you will find you need more than that. The below list is recommend as a minimum table of information to hold. The more information you have the better, after all knowledge is power.
Published Works Register Information Check List
- Title of either the book, magazine, journal or script (title or series for a script see item 30)
- ISBN – I log both the ISBN 13 and 10.
- ISSN for each magazine or journal your work has been published in.
- Your contribution as either the illustrator, author, photographer, translator, narrator, script writer or other.
- Publisher
- Date of publication (for that particular ISBN or ISSN)
- Language
- Country of publication
- A column for each of the other contributors as applicable (the illustrator, author, photographer, translator, narrator or other)
- Book or publication type as in Hardback, Paperback, Board Book, Kindle Edition, Box Set, CD, etc.)
To go a few steps more than the minimum you could also include:-
- Box number (assuming you are boxing the books, magazines etc. you have)
- Number of copies in a box
- Columns for each of the original book title and the actual book title (sometimes different editions have different titles, mostly when books are translated, naturally).
- Percentage royalty you are entitled to ranging from 0% to 100%
- The Online Computer Library Centre (OCLC) number, where available. (These can be particularly useful as identifiers for books and other bibliographic materials that do not have ISBN numbers).
- Number of pages
- Number of images (for illustrators, photographers, and other visual artists only. Count each image as one, so if you have the same image in a book five times that’s five images)
- Image sizes (such as spot art, vignette, ¼ page, ½ page, full page, double page, poster pull-out etc, which naturally I have only done for the ones we have physical copies of)
- Book dedication (if you have dedicated the book to anyone)
- Notes
- Any other column you feel you would like or might need now or in the future.
Better still include additional columns for things like:-
- Submitted to UK PLR Yes/No column
- PLR submission date
- A column each for any other collecting society / registration body and when the submission or registration was completed (such as DACS, ALCS etc.)
- A record of books linked to your Amazon Author Central profile(s) (for more details see my page on Amazon Author Central Accounts)
- Still in print, Yes / No.
- Page number(s) of the magazine your work is published in.
- Websites Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which we all know as the website address, for any websites your work is featured or used on.
- A record of any TV work (e.g. if your book was read on CBeebies bedtime stories including date and narrator)
If you are a script writer then you will need to capture information including:-.
- Title or Series (as per item 1)
- Episode title or number
- Channel it was first aired on.
- Type of work, such as radio, TV programme or film.
- Length of programme in minutes
- Original transmission date
- Your contribution such as script writer, original author or adaptor.
- Year of production
- Production company(s)
- Countries of production.
How to Start?
It does not matter how you start your log and in what format as long as you realise that at some point you will have to expand it for it to be as useful as possible. With that in mind it is would recommend to starting it in a digital format that you can print, or accept that it will have to become digital at some point. The simplest format we normally chose is spreadsheet, Why? Squeeze that Lemon was started by a Chartered Engineer / Project Manager so what else would you expect? That’s what they love doing!
We now have a basic format to adopt, all we need is information to start plugging in. If you thought the journey up to here was painful you need a stiff drink, something like a good Scottish whisky, neat with very loud bagpipe music …. After a couple of minutes of that you will have both the Dutch courage to continue and realisation that there are worse things in life than this …. such as listening to bagpipe music! ….. if you love bagpipe music then this will be a walk in the park for you!
How to Start?
If you have a pile of physical books / publications then you might be thinking that there is as good a place as any to start!? NO, NO, NO. All those books, and their details, will be available online. We normally start by scouring the internet for details of your books and other publications, collecting as much data as possible.
The very best place to start, in our opinion is the WorldCat website. Simply do a search on your published name(s) and start gathering all that wonderful data into your tabulated list. It can’t be stress enough to gather as much information as practical as you never know what you are going to need over and above what you can be bothered to gather.
Next Google searched for any library, Amazon domain and any other sites that list book ISBNs. Trade book selling sites can be some of the best places for information after WorldCat and your own publisher’s website(s) too.
If you do have a box or two of your books and/or magazines then check them off the list you have created and add any still missing from the list. Remember every time a book of yours is published either for the first time or in a different format, language, edition etc. you should either have received a copy or correspondence to let you know. OK some publishers are better than others at this, however, it is a nice headache to have and you could always ask your publishers for a list of your books and/or magazines your work has been published in too to check you haven’t missed any in your searches.
The list should proved to be very useful when completing Public Lending Right (PLR) applications for various countries, applying for the Designers and Artists Collecting Society (DACS) Payback scheme and the Author’s Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) claim forms to name a few and registering your books on their websites etc.
How Long Does it Take?
You are not going to like this at all! The short answer is that it depends on where you are starting from! Not much use is it? The more times you have been published the longer it could take. Yes it can take you hours of dull boring work to put together, however, it will pay off for years to come. Don’t try to do this all in one go. Break it up into bite size pieces and preserve your sanity. Do what you can when you can and before you know it you will have compiled an amazing list that will help you no end now and in the future. You will also feel amazing for doing it …. well at least you will know it’s done and over with for now.
To keep the book and magazine log (apparently it should actually be called an Asset Register but whatever!) up to date every time you receive a copy of a new edition or translation etc. you should add it straight away. It is also advisable to sometimes check WorldCat, Google search etc. to make sure you haven’t missed anything new.
If you have been very fortunate to have had any of your books read on TV etc. be sure to capture the details of when the show was broadcast etc. and enter them into your register. So you see it can be a lot more than just a log of all the books and magazines your work has been published in, which is why we call it your asset register, even though the idea of having a register of your assets might feel alien to you!
“My claims for PLR, DACS Payback, secondary use royalties etc. would never have been as good as they are if it were not for all your efforts and the hard work you have put in for me ….. Thank you” – Tina Macnaughton, Freelance Illustrator.
Can Someone Else Do this for You?
This is why we are here! We offer this service, and more, to all authors, illustrators etc. If you are interested then you can Contact Us and we’d be happy to talk to you about finding the right setup that would work for you and to allow you to Squeeze that Lemon as much as possible to maximise your income.
Naturally we would also be more than happy to share our thoughts and experience with you to help in any way, so if you do have more questions or are having an issue with something then please do drop us a line and we would gladly help you as much as we can.
Recommended Reading
How to start maximising your income as an Author, Illustrator etc.
Setting up a digital record of all your work from scratch.
How to join and make claims in as many places as possible!
How to claim DACS Payback (this article is for visual artists only).
How to claim secondary use royalties through ALCS
What is an ISBN or an ISSN and why should I care?