I perform pre-publication reviews a few times a month for both fiction and non-fiction works. Aside from identifying materials in your work that may be defined as defamatory or an invasion of privacy, prepublication reviews also address what we call “permissions.”
In literary works, no matter the genre, you may want to include copyrighted materials—e.g., text, lyrics, photos, illustrations—created and owned by third parties. The use of these third-party materials may be important to the success of your own work, but the third-party must grant you permission to use the material.
Recently, while reviewing a manuscript for prepublication issues, I noticed that the author had not identified the sources of quotes he had used in the text. What do I mean by source? For some quotations, there was no mention of who wrote the quoted material. In other spots, the copyright creator’s name might be mentioned but the title of the book that the quote had come from was not identified. And when I asked the author for any of the missing source information, he had no idea where he had found the quotes.
Without source information, you do not know what creator or publisher to contact for permission to use their materials. And if you do not request permission but include the materials in your work, it may result in an infringement action against you.
Under the circumstances, it’s worth taking the time to retrace your creative footsteps to try to locate source information but it is not always rewarding. The author mentioned here did so but could not consistently locate the quotes he had used, let alone any source information. Because of a publication calendar, he had no choice but to delete some third-party materials he had originally intended to include in his manuscript.
I offer this story to help you avoid experiencing the same disappointment and inconvenience. Source ignorance can force you to waste precious hours or days to locate and identify where you first sought or discovered third-party materials.
Whether you obtain third-party materials online or offline, assume that they are protected by copyright until you have the knowledge and time to find out otherwise. Meanwhile, collect and save the source information as suggested in the following section–in a way that prepares you to request permission if the materials are protected by copyright.
Collect and Save Source Information When You First Find It
Save your source information in a binder or in an excel spreadsheet when you first find the third-party material you want to include in your current manuscript draft. You can decide on a later date or in a later draft whether the material will qualify for your final manuscript. At this stage, you simply want to collect the material and any attached source information.
Your source file should include the following elements for every textual or visual material you include and should be all you need for the permission process.
- A copy of the materials you have inserted in your manuscript.
- The full name of the third-party who authored the materials.
- The title of the source where the materials are located (book, magazine, album, or journal?)
- The source’s volume, issue or edition number.
- The date of publication. If your source is a book, you want the copyright date. If the materials are from a magazine or journal—online or off—you want the publication date.
- The ISBN number if a book is your source.
- The ISSN number if the source is a newspaper, magazine or journal.
- If you are quoting text from a book, magazine, or journal, identify the page numbers and lines where the materials begin and end.
- If the materials you use include a visual work of any kind, list the “Figure No.,” if any, and the page number where it appears. Take a photo of the visual.
- If you find the materials or a reference to the materials in an online publication, you will also want to include the online address as well as the information listed above.
There are occasions, especially online, where some of this information may be absent, but do your best to copy whatever is available about the third-party materials you may want to use. When and if necessary, you can later enlist your local librarian to help you fill in the blanks.
Don’t make the writing process more difficult than it needs to be for yourself, your editor, ghostwriter, or the literary attorney performing your prepublication review. Collect and preserve source information the first time around.