The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society

"I'm writing this review June 2026 and will update it in September 2026. I received an email from ALCS in March stating that they believe I had unclaimed royalties from one of my 13 book titles. I eagerly signed up to the 'lifetime' membership, I waited over two months before it was activated!!! This must be the longest signup process in history, for any business. Once logged in, there is no way of knowing what outstanding royalty payment/balance you have. They don't display it. I had an email stating, "we’re currently holding £500 on your account." Payments are sent to your account in March and September of each year, and they take a 10% discount to keep the membership service running. I'm trying not to be sceptical, as I think I might have fallen for a marketing email trick to sign up, with no royalties due. I can't see the balance, and if I don't check back in with ALCS in September to see if I actually do have royalties due for payment, then I think the email sign up/membership could be a scam. I will update this review accordingly once I see what happens. I've notified ALCS that they will insist on claiming my membership feedback if no royalties are due for payment later in the year. I believe this could be a breach of the consumer protection enforced by Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)."

"They can be very instrumental when one publishes through a UK based publisher. Otherwise, it's a waste of time and effort to upload works that they would list as "not eligible". Do NOT be fooled by the deceptive description on their intro ("We collect money from all over the world, then pay it to our members.") That is if the publishers' company is headquartered outside the UK, your works are "not eligible" for them!"