That's the premise behind the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), and for many indie authors, joining is one of the easiest financial wins they'll ever make.

What Is ALCS?

The ALCS is a not-for-profit organisation that has been collecting money for writers since 1977. Its job is to ensure that authors are compensated whenever their work is used in ways beyond its original sale, in what's called secondary use.

Think about what happens after your book is published. Schools photocopy chapters for students. Universities scan extracts for reading lists. Businesses reproduce pages in training materials. Overseas broadcasters retransmit programmes based on written works. Every time this happens, a licensing fee is paid, and ALCS exists to make sure a share of that fee reaches you.

In the last financial year alone, ALCS paid out almost £45 million to over 100,000 writers. Since it was founded, it has distributed more than £700 million in total. That's not a niche scheme for a handful of literary heavyweights. It's a substantial pool of money that covers writers of all kinds, from novelists to scriptwriters to freelance journalists.

But I'm Self-Published. Does This Apply to Me?

Yes, and this is the part that surprises many indie authors.

ALCS membership is open to all writers, regardless of how their work was published. You don't need a traditional publishing deal. You don't need an agent. You simply need to have had work published, including self-published books with an ISBN.

The society covers fiction and non-fiction writers, poets, children's authors, academic writers, translators, and more. If your book exists in the world and someone, somewhere, is photocopying it or using it in ways that go beyond a straightforward purchase, ALCS may already be collecting money on your behalf.

I have read about one author who joined on a whim after publishing only a small number of academic works and received a payment of £272, completely unexpectedly. Another signed up years later than she should have and immediately saw the value of all those registered works in one place.

The honest truth is that most members don't fully understand where the money comes from. Staff at ALCS have noted with affection that many of their members simply call it "the magic money tree." The payments arrive twice a year, and while they may not be enormous, they're genuinely free money for work you've already done.

What Does It Actually Cost?

Here's where it gets even more interesting for the cautious self-publisher: there is effectively no upfront cost.

Lifetime membership is a one-off fee of £25, but this is deducted directly from your first royalty payment. If ALCS never collects any money for you, you pay nothing at all. There is no subscription, no renewal, no risk of being out of pocket.

This removes the main barrier for indie authors who are understandably wary of spending money on yet another writing-related service. You have nothing to lose by joining, and potentially a pleasant surprise waiting for you.

Do You Need Several Books to Make It Worthwhile?

This is the question most new self-publishers ask, and the answer is more nuanced than you might expect.

The more published works you have, the greater your earning potential. A self-published author with ten titles across different genres, especially if any of those books touch on educational or professional topics, stands to earn meaningfully more than someone with a single debut novel.

However, even a single book can generate ALCS income if it ends up in the right hands. Non-fiction tends to do particularly well, since educational institutions are more likely to photocopy or scan reference material, how-to guides, or subject-specific books. If your book is the kind that a teacher might pull a chapter from, or a training manager might reproduce for a workshop, ALCS income becomes very plausible even with a small catalogue.

Fiction is less predictable, but not without potential, particularly if your work ends up stocked in libraries, used in creative writing courses, or gains any kind of academic or educational attention.

What ALCS Doesn't Cover

It's worth being clear about what ALCS is not. It doesn't replace your sales royalties from Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, or any other platform. It doesn't deal with your primary publishing rights, which remain yours entirely.

ALCS handles secondary rights only: the uses that happen after your book is already out in the world. It also has agreements with over 55 collecting societies in more than 40 countries, which means it can collect international secondary royalties too, not just UK-based ones.

And it doesn't just distribute money. ALCS lobbies on behalf of writers at a government and international level, campaigns on copyright issues, and is currently active in discussions around AI and the use of authors' works for machine learning training. As a member, your voice is part of that collective advocacy.

How Do You Join?

The process is straightforward. You register at alcs.co.uk, create a membership account, and then register your published works. For books, you'll need your ISBNs. You'll also need to register by ALCS's annual deadline (typically in April) to be included in that year's distribution.

It takes perhaps an hour to set up, and then payments arrive twice a year, in the spring and autumn.

The Verdict

For self-published authors, ALCS is one of the most straightforward decisions in the business. The fee is deducted from earnings, so the worst case is that nothing happens and nothing is paid. The registration process is quick. The potential upside, even for a small catalogue, is real money for work you've already completed.

If you have even one published book with an ISBN, go and register. If you have a growing backlist, particularly with non-fiction titles, make this a priority.

You've already done the hard work of writing and publishing. Let ALCS do the work of making sure you're paid for every use of it.

ALCS membership is open to all writers. Visit alcs.co.uk to join and register your works.