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Re: picking your own clothes
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From: Lionel Bender <lionheart.brw_at_btinternet.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:00:19 +0100
;
Marc, Points well made and accepted. This again is a clear division between trade and school-and-library books. Production of the latter, for reasons often difficult to swallow, such as tight budgets and schedules, make extreme research a luxury. And, yes, publishers do increasingly ask to clear all rights, but photo agencies equally are putting up prices for digital use. A balance often needs to be made otherwise many good (but perhaps not excellent) books will never see the light of day and children will not get the variety of products they need. Lionel
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On 31 Mar 2012, at 13:36, bookmarch_at_aol.com wrote:
While I agree that much is open to negotiation, I must disagree with Lionel in a couple of ways. First, photo research is not necessarily best done by a professional. Indeed I -- and many of the trade NF authors I know -- find that doing that research is an essential part of our work as authors. Only we know in depth the kind of images that support our text. Indeed locating and using (sometimes obscure) image sources is part of what Susan Campbell Bartoletti calls the "extreme research" we do in creating our books (one that, as I have been discussing in my blog, reviewers never notice or credit us with doing). Locating an image, "reading" it carefully, placing it in the text, and writing the apt caption is part of the work we authors do in making our NF into immersive experiences. Only that tactile contact with image location and selection allows us to surround the reader in the world we are evoking in our books. Using a professional would be like hiring someone to pick your clothes -- we'd rather shop for o urselves, and show the world our own sense of style.
Second, while it is useful as a negotation strategy to limit the rights you want, increasingly publishers, aware of the digital and thus global future of books, require you to clear -- or at least know the final cost of -- all rights.
Marc Aronson
Received on Sat 31 Mar 2012 02:00:19 PM CDT
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 14:00:19 +0100
;
Marc, Points well made and accepted. This again is a clear division between trade and school-and-library books. Production of the latter, for reasons often difficult to swallow, such as tight budgets and schedules, make extreme research a luxury. And, yes, publishers do increasingly ask to clear all rights, but photo agencies equally are putting up prices for digital use. A balance often needs to be made otherwise many good (but perhaps not excellent) books will never see the light of day and children will not get the variety of products they need. Lionel
_____________________________
On 31 Mar 2012, at 13:36, bookmarch_at_aol.com wrote:
While I agree that much is open to negotiation, I must disagree with Lionel in a couple of ways. First, photo research is not necessarily best done by a professional. Indeed I -- and many of the trade NF authors I know -- find that doing that research is an essential part of our work as authors. Only we know in depth the kind of images that support our text. Indeed locating and using (sometimes obscure) image sources is part of what Susan Campbell Bartoletti calls the "extreme research" we do in creating our books (one that, as I have been discussing in my blog, reviewers never notice or credit us with doing). Locating an image, "reading" it carefully, placing it in the text, and writing the apt caption is part of the work we authors do in making our NF into immersive experiences. Only that tactile contact with image location and selection allows us to surround the reader in the world we are evoking in our books. Using a professional would be like hiring someone to pick your clothes -- we'd rather shop for o urselves, and show the world our own sense of style.
Second, while it is useful as a negotation strategy to limit the rights you want, increasingly publishers, aware of the digital and thus global future of books, require you to clear -- or at least know the final cost of -- all rights.
Marc Aronson
Received on Sat 31 Mar 2012 02:00:19 PM CDT
