We recently read a reviewer\u2019s note on Amazon, regarding our book “Photographer\u2019s Survival Manual”, now in its second printing. We are a bit confused, as supposedly people who purchased and read the work write such reviews.\u00a0\u00a0This \u201creviewer\u201d never read our book, yet decided since it doesn\u2019t have electronic forms and really doesn’t have “everything” a photographer needs to know, he didn\u2019t want the book.<\/p>\n
Ed is “dubious” and Jack is thrilled! Mainly because someone saying something like this, and pointing out he\u2019s found many other books on the subject, makes us think\u00a0 A) it\u2019s a plant and B) that we\u2019re doing something right!<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Dogs don\u2019t bark at parked cars. The problem with the \u201creviewer\u2019s\u201d comment is really that he doesn\u2019t want the tedious task of transcribing the forms we provide in the book and customizing them to his own business. \u00a0Oh my, torturous work indeed!.<\/p>\n We want to take this time to point out to everyone that while we\u2019re happy to provide paperwork templates to work from, and we\u2019re thrilled when people use them as a starting point<\/em>, but we\u00a0strongly<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0advise everyone to customize all forms to their own needs and then have a lawyer review all your paperwork so they may be pronounced “good to go”. \u00a0Despite the yearnings of photographers from coast to coast one size does not fit all.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n There are many contracts we\u2019ve seen and reviewed. \u00a0Many are free for the asking. Some you must pay for. Still others appear in books\u00a0and are available online. Some are drafted by trade associations. Some are awful, others are useful as a good outline but using any of them without it being tailored and modified to your business, your state’s laws and then approved by a local lawyer, is an invitation to a disaster.<\/p>\n A major problem with any generic contract is that local laws are\u00a0not generic<\/em>. \u00a0Each state in the United States, and even within some counties or cities within a given state, has its own laws with respect to the form, style, requirements and contents of contracts. While copyright law is Federal and thus does not differ from state to state, contract and privacy laws vary widely. That means model releases, invoices, terms and conditions, they all need local involvement and expertise when used in real life.<\/p>\n In the end, the best protection, more than any easy to copy form or template, electronic or manual, is to simply hire a local lawyer after you have reviewed the forms in our book (and others if you like). \u00a0Bring them along with any questions you may have to a consultation with a real live lawyer. The lawyer will then go over your paperwork and customize it to your needs and the local laws. Don’t limit the task, provide\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0of your paperwork. Invoices, change orders, model releases, everything. Yes, it will cost you a few bucks for this one time project, but trust us, it\u2019s a lot cheaper than hiring that same lawyer to defend your behind when you get blindsided by a lawsuit or have to hire a lawyer to collect your fee because you used a free form that falls short in your village, city, or state.<\/p>\n Our book does not purport to instruct the reader on “everything” one needs to know to be a professional photographer. \u00a0We have been writing a column for Photoshop User<\/em> magazine for years. This blog contains dozens of articles. We have been lecturing and\/or giving all day<\/em> seminars at (plugs coming up!) Photoshop World \u00a0(next in Orlando, FL (April 14 -17), B&H Learning Center (first time February 26th <\/sup>\u2013 it\u2019s free), Photo Expos, APA panels, The Hallmark Institute of Photography, and at the School of Visual Arts. We have spent thousands of hours on educating photographers on how to run a business, register their copyrights, collect unpaid invoices and on and on. \u00a0Any book purporting to tell the reader “everything” one needs to know would run a few thousand pages in length and be out dated by the time it was printed – even as an e book. There is nothing contained in our book that represents that it contains \u00a0“everything” you need to know. There is no business where everything can be learned from reading a book and one would need to be rather naive’ to believe such a thing.<\/p>\n There is nothing in our book that makes such a claim. This critic states it nevertheless. The fact that we never said it… well we guess that doesn’t matter much. It is ironic that we spend so much time trying to bust web myths that someone is trying to use one on us.<\/p>\n That great philosopher and boxer, Mike Tyson, once said fittingly: Oh, and if you did buy our book and feel like writing a review at Amazon, we wouldn\u2019t complain and would appreciate it.\u00a0That is if you did like our book. If you didn\u2019t like it…well, never mind then.<\/p>\n Happy New Year to all from Ed and Jack<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We recently read a reviewer\u2019s note on Amazon, regarding our book “Photographer\u2019s Survival Manual”, now in its second printing. We are a bit confused, as supposedly people who purchased and read the work write such reviews.\u00a0\u00a0This \u201creviewer\u201d never read our book, yet decided since it doesn\u2019t have electronic forms and really doesn’t have “everything” a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright-info"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":903,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em>
\nNot buying it for that reason reminds us of one of our favorite jokes:
\nFred finds his buddy Tom in the street, late one dark night, looking for something down on his hands and knees.
\nFred asks \u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d
\nTom replies that he lost his keys just up the street.
\n\u201cUp the street? Then why are you looking over here if you lost them up there?\u201d
\nTom replies, \u201cIt\u2019s too dark there, the light is better over here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cEveryone\u2019s got a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n