Canadian authors, illustrators and photographers with published books should invest some time over the next few weeks to register for the Public Lending Right Program. The program is a Canada Council for the Arts program that distributes payments to Canadian creators in compensation for the lending out of their books through Canadian public libraries.

This year's registration period runs from February 15 to May 1. In order to register, you'll need to fill out and mail in a signed registration form along with photocopies of the title page, copyright page and table of contents of the book or books you've contributed to. It's worth taking the time to do the paperwork -- the average payment to authors last year was $563.

For details on eligibility criteria or the application process, see the Public Lending Right Program's website.