My non-awaited follow-up to Corfu, not a scorcher is well underway. Without giving too much away, it’s a memoir no one will want to read because I am not famous and have achieved next-to-nothing in life. To make it more interesting – for me – it’s based around the songs that have provided *CLICHÉ ALERT* the soundtrack of my life. It’s been a lot of fun writing it and I am hoping the book will be out there just in time to tap into the Christmas market or, to put it another way, just in time for Christmas. The tricky bit is something called copyright.
I’ve had issues with copyright in a different setting in recent weeks and, without going into detail, it’s cost me everything and more of what I have made from my first book, which to be fair wasn’t that much, but I had set it aside for a rainy way. I got lazy, publishing stuff that infringed copyright and despite my profuse apologies and the fact that I took the blog down within minutes of being notified the powers-that-be still went after me. My fault, 100% my own fucking stupid fault, and I have had to own it. Given that I am someone who always bangs on about how I always buy, and never stream, music and I always buy new and not second-hand books, it’s safe to say I have not just been a dick but also a hypocrite. It serves me right. Now, as I prepare that difficult second book for final editing and proofreading, both by me, I may be self-publishing a book about songs but without quoting song lyrics.
I’ve found an ancient Guardian article about the cost of quoting lyrics and it’s mind-blowing. In 2010, as you can see, it cost the author Blake Morrison £500 to use one line from Jumpin’ Jack Flash, £535 for one line of Wonderwall, one line of When I’m Sixty-four” came in at £735 and two lines (eleven words) of Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff a mere £1000. On my early draft, I have quite a lot of song lyrics as part of the story, but it’s clear that I shall have to obtain permission from the publishers if I am to use them and if it means shelling out a huge wedge, or any wedge at all, I’ll have to abandon the idea. Will I be able to simply describe the meaning of words used rather than the actual lyrics themselves, or will that get me in trouble, too?
That said, I do believe artists should be paid for their work, whether those artists be Paul McCartney level superstars or the Wayne Scrote Quartet, trying to scratch a living from the likes of Bandcamp and streaming services that offer pitiful levels of remuneration. And that means people like me who have spent months researching and writing a deeply personal story and are not expecting to make more than a few coppers from a book, which will not go any way to offsetting the costs of writing and self-publishing the thing, could find themselves in great difficulty, both legally and financially if we go stealing the work of others. I can’t take a chance.
So I don’t make the same mistake twice, I’ll be contacting the publishers of the songs I will be using, assuming I can find out who the hell they are and if I can’t, then I suppose the book, in part or in entirety, will die a quick death. I’m hoping they’ll be kind and supportive, unlike the the company I recently had the misfortune to deal with. I repeat, the error was all mine and this is a tough business, much tougher than I realised. I’ve worked really hard to make this book happen. If I fail, I’ll be proper gutted, as they say.
