Cash for Copyright (Research)?
September 14, 2011 10:48 AM Subscribe
Are you a Rights and Permissions Editor? A Photo Researcher? Do you freelance as one, or work with one--or simply know something about the field? Please, may I pick your brain?
Former freelance (text) editor here with project management/coordination experience, who can't edit anymore because it's too keyboard-intensive. Looking to switch fields, but keep getting blocked by overly specialized, yet overly generalized editorial background, the recession, and lack of money for retraining.
At this point, I'm just desperate to earn some cash, and I'm gathering that permissions editors/photo researchers are a fairly rarified breed, that the pay is good (unless the recession has changed that?), and that the work, above all, requires superlative organizational skills, good research abilities, lots of patience, and a firm grip on copyright and public domain law.
Is that true?
More specifically, I'm looking for information on:
1. How easy is it to get into? (And how badly have these fields suffered since the recession?)
2. Where can I get trained or train myself to do permissions editing/photo research?
3. How much of it is having a really good checklist/chart of issues to check for, and dates to check back, applied to all relevant materials?
4. How much easier does Filemaker Pro make the process?
5. Would I approach the managing editor/project editor at textbook and reference publishers to find work? Anyone else?
6. And most of all, could you give me some idea of what it pays in the Greater Boston area, particularly in the freelance realm?
Any other details would be greatly appreciated.
Former freelance (text) editor here with project management/coordination experience, who can't edit anymore because it's too keyboard-intensive. Looking to switch fields, but keep getting blocked by overly specialized, yet overly generalized editorial background, the recession, and lack of money for retraining.
At this point, I'm just desperate to earn some cash, and I'm gathering that permissions editors/photo researchers are a fairly rarified breed, that the pay is good (unless the recession has changed that?), and that the work, above all, requires superlative organizational skills, good research abilities, lots of patience, and a firm grip on copyright and public domain law.
Is that true?
More specifically, I'm looking for information on:
1. How easy is it to get into? (And how badly have these fields suffered since the recession?)
2. Where can I get trained or train myself to do permissions editing/photo research?
3. How much of it is having a really good checklist/chart of issues to check for, and dates to check back, applied to all relevant materials?
4. How much easier does Filemaker Pro make the process?
5. Would I approach the managing editor/project editor at textbook and reference publishers to find work? Anyone else?
6. And most of all, could you give me some idea of what it pays in the Greater Boston area, particularly in the freelance realm?
Any other details would be greatly appreciated.
In textbook publishing, in my experience, permissions editors are generally employees of the publisher while photo researchers can be employed by vendors (editorial or production houses) or publishers.
Vendors are a lot more likely to hire freelancers than publishers are. In Massachusetts, certain publishers absolutely will not hire freelancers no matter what because of how they read the Commonwealth's tax laws. They may, however, hire term of project employees.
Filemaker is database program. How helpful it is depends on how the specific database was authored. Permissions and art spec databases tend to do the same things, so likely if you learn one database it'll be very similar conceptually to the next.
posted by ifandonlyif at 5:35 PM on September 14, 2011
Vendors are a lot more likely to hire freelancers than publishers are. In Massachusetts, certain publishers absolutely will not hire freelancers no matter what because of how they read the Commonwealth's tax laws. They may, however, hire term of project employees.
Filemaker is database program. How helpful it is depends on how the specific database was authored. Permissions and art spec databases tend to do the same things, so likely if you learn one database it'll be very similar conceptually to the next.
posted by ifandonlyif at 5:35 PM on September 14, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
But, to generalize:
Basically, I sit at a computer all day. If you still have the hand/wrist problem that you've mentioned before, this work isn't going to make it any better. I find images in online vendor data-bases, negotiate for rates, and secure the best quality for the job. Because I do so much business a year, I can usually get a vendor to cut a rate for a small job, because I can make it up to them on a larger one (say documentary vs. Super Bowl commercial.) I'm not always at the computer, but in general--that's where the pictures live.
Authors are usually tasked with finding and clearing images, and most publishers don't pay very well for this. (I think the costs come out of the author's advance.) In my experience, some authors have interns/assistants pick the low-hanging fruit of Library of Congress and public domain, and then hire an expert to come in to make deals and get all the paperwork in place.
The ins and outs of copyright law and Fair Use aren't particuarly hard to figure out, as there's a lot of resources online. I work with two lawyers exclusively--one on each coast.
I use a version of Filemaker, but each production is different. The database doesn't really make much difference to me.
I'd guess that you'd need to seek out authors, more than publishers, but I could be wrong. Day rates for film are around $600, but I think print is quite a bit less.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:30 AM on September 14, 2011