More than 60 local authors came together on Saturday and unanimously agreed to draft a writers’ bill of economic rights. 

The writers met as part of the National Book Council’s first-ever national writers’ congress. A further 75 writers who could not attend the event had written in to approve the decision to draft a bill of rights. 

An economic bill of rights will stress the right for authors to receive due payment for their work, and serve as guide to the government as its transposes EU directives concerning copyright into local law. 

The draft bill also calls for book royalties to be at least 10 per cent of net sales.

A second motion presented at the Congress concerned the National Book Council itself. Authors want the NBC to be an autonomous entity with its own legal status, and the motion was approved unanimously. 

Tensions over the NBC’s legal status led to a social media outburst by its executive chairperson Mark Camilleri in August. 

Writing on Facebook, Mr Camilleri had accused the Education Ministry of a “flagrant breach” of its duties and claimed that bureaucrats had unanimously decided to freeze council funds without warning. 

The Education Ministry had denied that claim. 

Among issues highlighted by authors during Saturday’s congress were concerns about poetry being excluded from minimum royalty payments in the Writers’ Bill of Economic Rights. Mr Camilleri declared that poetry books should be included once fiscal incentives for the industry were introduced.

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