Oh, absolutely. I'm not really a drabble dictator.

Oh, Liese. Ouch.

Hey, driving by on something less than John H. natter diet. Kudos to Gus, {{Hugs}} to Teppy. Also the money may not be good, but lots of the cool kids publish with BAEN.

In MeMeMe stuff, am doing comparative analysis section for a book proposal. No problem knowing what is comparable to me out there; I either used much of it as sources, rejected the rest as either not applicable or total crap (cough Jeremy Rifkin, cough,cough). But I'm supposed to estimate how much each book sold. Turns out publishers aren't eager to share that info for stuff that is still in print. So what is a decent basis for a good guess?

On edit - no, don't have an editor asking for a proposal. Just following a recommendation of writing the book proposal first, then basing the query on the proposal.

TB, that's one of those questions I've never yet got the hang of. Are you agented? Ask him/her how to get it. Or take a plunge and go by the Amazon stats: number of reviews, etc. You won't get more than a wild fantasy guess. but honestly, if they're going to insist, you may need to just pull numbers out of your ass anyway, and asterisk the damned things with "estimated" highlighted.

Nice thing about fiction, they don't pull this crap much.

I also raise my hand with a question. Looking at my contract (wheee!) I understand everything but this: The Work will contain no material from other copyrighted works without the Publisher's consent and the written consent of the owner of such copyrighted material.

I thought that as long as a passage was attributed to the author and acknowledged in the bibliography, I was kosher.

And I have a lot of internet quotes from message boards. What's a girl to do? How do I get this written consent?

Oh, and Gus, don't normally remember authors by publisher - but Eric Flint has done some really good stuff at BAEN. Bujold has alread been mentioned as good company. Seem to remember they have a board call Baen's Bar or some such.

Allyson, short quotes from published prose works (posting on internet including boards counts as publication) is fair use. What is a "short quote" in this context is unfortunately not as simple as a word count - though often some arbitrary word cutoff is used as proxy. Most of the legal texts give word counts that can be used for practical purposes with various numbers. Ask your publisher which they use. If they tell you that there is no such thing as fair use, several lawyers have told that at the moment yes there is. Using an entire work does not meet that standard, and it is true to some extent for poetry and lyrics, but for prose short quotes are still kosher.

Allyson, what TB said. Also, have a look at the source boards from which you got your quoted material. Is there a disclaimer of any kind on the FAQ or home page for any of them? You know, something like "All participants in this forum understand and agree to open and free use of their material" or, maybe, just the opposite?

Because some boards have them, and some don't.

Ah. But let's say it's someone's entire internet post.

I include entire posts from both Joss and Tim, for example.

I have both Godwin's Law and Snacky's Law included. I wouldn't know how to get in touch with either of them.

kicks internet

Folk here can get you in touch with Snacky, I'm pretty sure. But, ex cloaca, I doubt you need to get permission to reprint a law.