Book deal

savannahga

I was contacted by a publisher about my pictures. They want 300-500 images
of Savannah for a book. They want me to come up with a TITLE for the book & get chapters together & write paragraphs & captions about the images. How would I get images copywrited before I send them to the publisher? How much would that cost? Thanks for any info.

Jeff

Shay Stephens

This is a *very* large project. Are you a writer? Is this something you can reasonably do? Are they basically saying to just write a book? It sounds odd, but maybe that is just the way you have described it.

To officially register a copyright with the copyright office in the USA, start with these websites:
http://www.asmp.org/commerce/legal/copyright/
http://www.copyright.gov/register/visual.html

savannahga wrote:

I was contacted by a publisher about my pictures. They want 300-500 images
of Savannah for a book. They want me to come up with a TITLE for the book & get chapters together & write paragraphs & captions about the images. How would I get images copywrited before I send them to the publisher? How much would that cost? Thanks for any info.

Jeff

savannahga

Not a writer!

Shay Stephens wrote:

This is a *very* large project. Are you a writer? Is this something you can reasonably do? Are they basically saying to just write a book?

I'm not a writer, but I do have the pictures. Hopefully they want more of a picture book than a writing masterpiece.

Here the publisher that contacted me: www.schifferbooks.com

Shay Stephens

Well this is just a feeling, but I don't like it. It sounds like they are going about things very backward. Did they offer the services of a good editor? Do they have an idea of what kind of book they are looking to have produced? Are they leaving this all up to you to figure out?

This kind of project can take a serious chunk of time to produce. Do you have that time available? What were they talking about as far as compensation, press run, etc?

You don't have to answer any of these questions, but you should at least have them answered by the publisher. You need to have clearly defined what it is they are wanting, what you will be providing, when it needs to be completed, and what's in it for you other than just being "published".

savannahga wrote:

I'm not a writer, but I do have the pictures. Hopefully they want more of a picture book than a writing masterpiece.

Here the publisher that contacted me: www.schifferbooks.com

rutt

I'd at least want to meet these guys and see their offices. How do they know about you? Can you talk so some of their other photographers? See some other similar book projects? I'm with Shay, I think you need to find out as much as you can as soon as possible.

David_S85

Jeff,

Talked to Mrs. David_S85 about this, and some (OK, most) of this advice is from her.

The first thing I did was to look up your site. You list prices for your photos, which is a good thing. If there is a real offer about to happen, then they know that you'll want real money for the rights to your work. If the audience is much wider, the prices you list don't matter. You should get more $$$, depending on what they will be doing with your photos. Limited usage rights is probably what you will be looking to offer in a contract. This would keep you as the owner of the photos. In other words, you could still sell them to someone else later on. Make sure the contract is from you (and a lawyer), not one they may send you. Most likely, anything they might send you is highly tipped to their favor.

But as Shay Stephens has already mentioned, it does seem a backwards way of publishing. Unpublished authors fight like hell to find agents willing to represent your work, and then the agent shops for months or years for a willing publisher. Coming to you with this out of the blue? Not impossible, but highly highly unlikely.

Do this first. Go to your local library. Try to find a reference book called "Literary Marketplace." Look up Schiffer Books. They should be listed. Even if they're bad dudes, they should be in there.

I also searched Google under "(publishing OR publisher) scam schiffer" and came up mostly dry. Also good.

But who contacted you? Was it someone directly working for Schiffer, or was it an outside agent?

There are literary lawyers out there. Mrs. David_S85 employs one for her work. If things move along the right path (and in the right order), make sure you have this type of lawyer working for you for something like these 300-500 pictures.

Whatever you do, do not send them photos of any size without having legal documents in hand. Hopefully, you don't store large copies of your work online. If they (Schiffer) are legit, they shouldn't be stealing photos anyway, but outside agents - I dunno.

But something does smell like a rat here - just a gut feeling.

savannahga wrote:

I was contacted by a publisher about my pictures. They want 300-500 images
of Savannah for a book. They want me to come up with a TITLE for the book & get chapters together & write paragraphs & captions about the images. How would I get images copywrited before I send them to the publisher? How much would that cost? Thanks for any info.

Jeff

savannahga

Thanks for all the advice guys, i'm taking it all in. I have no clue what to do first.

Jeff