Jan 25 2009
Far From the Paperless Society
In my previous, rather lengthy post “Step Two: Off To Work We Go,” I explained how to set-up a working spreadsheet to track your permissions. This post will be a lot shorter! As the header to this post clearly says, permissions work is most definitely not paperless. Although many of the documents can be kept on the computer, more are on paper.
For the entire project, you will need:
* A hard copy of the author’s complete manuscript,
* If this is a new edition of a previously published text book, then you will need two copies of the previous edition.
Typical paper documents for each individual permissions request includes:
* A copy of the material for which permission is being sought, including all source information,
* A cover letter,
* A completed permissions request form,
* Ongoing correspondence and notes,
* Contracts,
* Invoices.
I’ve found the easiest way to keep track of all the paperwork is to label a manila folder with the name of the primary contact and put all the papers for this contact inside the folder. While the permissions request is still ongoing, I keep the request form and cover letter in front of the folder. Once the permission is obtained, I put the contract and invoice in front.
At this point, you may be wondering what some of these documents are. Don’t worry, I’ll be explaining these documents in future posts. For now, all you need to know is that you will need a box of manila folders, folder labels, and something to hold everything.
I’m very low maintenance in my own office-a box works well as a filing drawer. For a small project with perhaps forty permissions, a 12″ box does the job. But I’ve worked on some really large projects with over 200 permissions. Avon shipping cartons work well for those big projects! (My sister sells Avon and saves her empty boxes for me.) Of course, if you have room for a nice filing cabinet, or two, or want to purchase decorative file boxes, then you could always use those!
© 2009 Anne Wallingford. All Rights Reserved.
