Obtaining Permission to Quote
Obtaining permissions is a pain in the neck, and it follows that the more permissions you have to obtain, the greater the pain.
For one thing, you have to wait until the last minute.
You can’t request permissions until you know what you want to quote, and you won’t know that until you’ve finished writing the piece.
You can’t request permissions until your work is accepted for publication, because you need to say in your permission requests who will publish your book or article.
And, after your book is well into production and a publication date is set, the publisher’s editor may spot a quotation for which you need to obtain permission.
The exchange of correspondence to obtain permission can be maddeningly slow, just when you want things to go fast.
Each publisher or writer or writer’s agent may receive hundreds or thousands of permission requests a week. Your request has to take its place in queue, and a multimillion-dollar offer for movie rights will probably jump the line ahead of your modest request for permission to quote.
Adding to the agony, each writer and each publisher is free to set his or her own permission fees. Depending, upon the nature of the material you want to quote, and the extent and proposed use of the quote, the fee may vary from twenty dollars to several thousand.
Not only that, the writer or publisher is not obliged to grant you permission. They’re not likely to refuse, but they get to decide, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
To seek permission to quote, you write to the rights and permissions department of the magazine or book publisher that published the work you wish to quote.
Publishers go out of business and magazines change their names, so you may have to write several letters to get your request to the right person.
To find the correct address, you use the masthead of the magazine, the copyright page (reverse of the title page) of a book, a library reference book such as Literary Market Place, or the publisher’s Web site.
Also, the United States Copyright Office can help you find the proprietor of the rights in question, and an outfit called the Copyright Clearance Center can also facilitate requests for permission to use material controlled by many publishers.
Your request letter is simple and straightforward. In a letter addressed to the attention of the rights and permissions department of the publisher, on your letterhead, you say simply something like this:
Dear [editor’s name]:
I am writing to request permission to quote [amount of text: three hundred words, five lines, whatever] from [author, title, place of publication, copyright date] in all printings and editions of my forthcoming book, [title of your book].
My book will be published in [specify whether hardback or paperback] by [name of publisher] in an edition of [specify approximate initial pressrun] in [season or month of publication]. It is a [some phrase to indicate the size and nature of the intended readership: scholarly book, educational text, article of general interest, memoir published for the members of my local engineering society].
I have enclosed photocopies of the passages I wish to quote, with page citations and word count indicated.
I will be happy to answer any questions you may have about this request. May I please hear from you soon?
Sincerely yours,
[your signature]
From the publication date you have specified for your book, the publisher can tell how urgent your request is.
Be sure to indicate your telephone number, e-mail address, and fax number, if you have one, so that the publisher can respond quickly and efficiently.
The publisher may have a form for you to fill out and return either by mail or electronically.
Your own publisher will offer advice and may be able to provide sample permission request letters. You may even have been able to negotiate a contract by which your publisher agrees to handle permission requests.
Publishers’ rights departments make their money from, big movie, paperback, and foreign rights deals, not from requests for permission to quote. This has three implications for you. First, they probably won’t charge you an exorbitant fee. Second, the person handling low-income permission requests such as yours may be new at the business, certainly will be underpaid, and merits your compassion. Third, in the press of thousands of requests, they may not respond to your request as fast as you could wish.
We counsel patience. You can always repeat your request, but it is a good idea to do so courteously. If in your second letter you ask politely for a reply by a certain date, you’ve laid the groundwork for a follow-up request.
And if the permission fee does seem exorbitant, you can make a reasoned, factual case (showing for example that your book or article is scholarly and noncommercial) asking the publisher or author to reconsider, and you may get a reduced rate.