| thoughts from a cunning linguist | |
I am coming to the end of a lengthy collaborative project--co-editing a collection of essays with a colleague (and former friend). And there's a snag. One of the people whose essay is going to be reprinted in this collection has included images in that essay. As the editors, we overlooked this fact by mistake. Yes, the mistake was made by a research assistant who did not scan in the images when she scanned in the text. But in the end, the error is ours. We did not, therefore, negotiate with the press to have these images (there are 6) included in the book. The images are not *essential* to the argument of the essay. But they are published with this essay elsewhere. Before telling the author about this rather significant oversight, we thought we should ask the press what they thought. The guy who is in charge of the project said he would prefer to lve the images out and asks if we can just "let the author know."
Of course, this is not just a matter of letting the author "know." How do we broach the topic with her? My colleague has suggested that we make much of the fact that the press wants to keep costs down and that, after all, the original contract does not make any stipulations about images. And we conclude our message to her by saying "I hope this is okay with you."
Except...
This doesn't seem to give the author much sense that she can respond to the matter. She is being informed instead. And, if the images were not going to be published with the essay, should we not have told her this *before* she signed the contract? I think so. Then she could have made a more "informed" decision about signing the contract itself.
I would hate to be "informed" about such a matter, myself. But I also hate being the informant here. Although more to the point, I hate that we've fucked up.
That Catholic guilt again. Is it time to confess? Would confession make it better? Or is pragmatism the way to go and avoid the confession altogether unless it becomes necessary?
Argh.
Time to sleep on it, I think.
Posted by Bush Whacker at March 12, 2003 11:27 PMO Bush Whacker... Despite what some might thing, I honestly didn't come to your blog before making my latest entry in aMMusing. Yet I, too, have a tale of fucking up to tell. And it does bug the shit out of me when I fuck up. Now as for the matter at hand, you say the rep at the press said he'd "prefer" to leave the images out. Any way of (a) changing his preference, (b) clearing copyright on the images, and (c) finding the extra $ required for the copyright and increased cost of printing? (I'm assuming the images are B&W.)
Posted by: Maurice on March 13, 2003 12:47 AM