Subject: Re: Idea: Publishing Catcher Album
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 28 2001 - 21:57:40 GMT
On Sun, Jan 28, 2001 at 04:27:22PM -0700, Suzanne Morine wrote:
> Also, Bernd wrote something to the effect that there may be problems with
> old Salinger opposing such a book. However, I tend to disagree. Salinger
> seems to dislike people quoting his books and nosing into his life. Or does
> it go beyond that? I don't know a lot about him. The album doesn't quote
> the book or talk about anything very personal about Salinger.
I am not a lawyer or a publisher's rep, but as far as I understand
copyright law, the author cannot prevent you from discussing his work
-- particularly if you avoid quoting him, or you quote within the
guidelines of fair use -- and he has utterly no power to prevent you
from presenting photographs of New York City, even if they are related
to scenes in his book.
I would personally lay out a reasonable sum of money for a coffee-table
book of a CATCHER album, but I admit I'm not the most objective
book-buyer in the room....
> Any opinions and observations here?
My wife, the literary agent and former editor, suggests that the cost
of doing a full-color coffee-table book would be prohibitively
expensive, and that perhaps the only way of offsetting this would be
to line up a list of "name" authors who might write essays, such as
Mary Cantwell did in the New York Times several years back about
"Holden Caulfield's New York." This might make publishers less
jittery about the expense, but would still make it unlikely that any
would take the chance, based purely on the risk/reward factor, not
on anything to do with the merit of the project itself. (Such is the
way the book industry functions.) She apologizes for casting rain on
the proverbial parade, but she has pretty good instincts about these
things.
--tim
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