Need quick advice

[Bobobird]

A while back I started a gallery of my shots at National Geographic.
http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.c...llery/1434945/

In late December, a lady posted a message saying her organisation http://www.catersnews.com/index.php would like to do an article about the osprey's. Since not much else was said I assumed it was just a fishing expedition. I did reply and gave her my email address.

Been a couple of weeks now and today out of the blue she wrote me this email.

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Please accept my apologies for the delay in sending you an email, I hadn't realised you had replied to my post.

I'm a journalist and think your osprey and fish sequence of images are fantastic! I'd love to write an article about these images and how you managed to capture them.

We would like to then place the article along with a selection of your images in newspapers, magazines and online news sites worldwide.

Publications do pay for use of images and we would of course pay you 60% of any sales we make on your behalf.

The copyright of the images would undoubtedly remain yours we could just like you to grant us permission to syndicate them on your behalf.

Could I perhaps arrange to discuss with this with you in more detail? Perhaps chat to you quickly over the phone?

I hope to hear from you soon.

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There is a another factor to consider as I propose to enter some of the osprey pics in a contest. A pre-condition is that entries must be unpublished anywhere.

I never argue with money but the very remote chance of a competition selection is pretty tempting.

Now what?

All advice appreciated.

Thanks.

[Mike Buckley]

Congratulations on the interest!

The selection date of the contest and the likelihood that your images would be placed by the journalist prior to that date might be important. It's possible that you could win the contest and that your images could be placed later even if you give permission now. On the other hand, it's possible that publications would be less interested in a photo that has already been published and widely seen as a result of winning the contest.

You might want to be up front with the journalist, explain your quandry, and ask for a response and suggestion.

[AB26]

Congratulations Bobo.

Decide what is most important to you - getting your work published or winning a competition. It is your call.

[Manfred M]

I would be tempted to stick with the contest, as the $$$ associated with articles tends to be pretty low. Even nationally syndicated columnists get relatively little money for the articles that they write, so the amount of money you see out of the publication may not be worth bothering with.

[Mike Buckley]

Manfred makes a good point. Consider asking the journalist for a realistic range of your expected income so you can make your decision taking that information into account.

[deetheturk]

Hi Bobo,congrats a man in demand eh,for me its a no brainer,i would go with the money and get published around the world as opposed to winning a comp and maybe get published?.There will always be other competitions!

Cheers David

[flashback]

Bobo,

A quick online check found the following:
http://safaritalk.net/topic/10833-ca...ews-agency-uk/
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1215899
http://www.redbubble.com/groups/copy...-harm-and-more

I have no knowledge of Caters News Agency other than what I've found above but, having read the comments in the above links I would proceed with caution. My take on the email you received is a free lance writer is looking to sell an article to Caters. If you decide to do so you might want to find out what this 'journalist' has written and had published (and where; if you write a puff article or two for your local penny saver, you're a journalist.)

Looking at the Caters News Agency website, there is a link where you can buy photos. It *suggests* to me that, while you maintain copyright, they may retain the exclusive right to sell your photos, which could exclude you from showing or selling those photos yourself. Just my take on this, I have no particular knowledge of the business but my radar has pinged.

[NorthernFocus]

I have done something similar in the past. As has already been mentioned, the money is minimal and based on my experience may be a long time coming. I would make the decision based on your desired exposure. If the contest is more important to you then go with that. If you find the prospect of publication more desireable/useful then that my be a consideration. The latter was my driver as some places require photographers to demonstrate that they have been published as part of criteria for obtaining professional passes/permits to locations.

First and foremost do a bit of on-line research as to the validity of the proposal.

[FootLoose]

I would be suspicious, Bobo, because there seems to me to be too many typos in that email for a legitimate journalist.

[Rongnogno]

....

Wise advice, intriguing research, wow!

[Mike Buckley]

I would be suspicious, Bobo, because there seems to me to be too many typos in that email for a legitimate journalist.

I wonder if you're mistaking typos for the different types of English spellings, such as American English and European English. According to Firefox, the journalist's email contains no misspellings.

As for the other type of typos, I have a good friend of 40 years who has spent her entire career in journalism, has been a Fulbright scholar a couple of times, etc. Her emails contain those types of errors that all of us carelessly make.

[FootLoose]

I wonder if you're mistaking typos for the different types of English spellings, such as American English and European English. According to Firefox, the journalist's email contains no misspellings.

As for the other type of typos, I have a good friend of 40 years who has spent her entire career in journalism, has been a Fulbright scholar a couple of times, etc. Her emails contain those types of errors that all of us carelessly make.

Mike, I always ignore spelling and typos in posts on forums like this for obvious reasons, but in this case I think it is wise to be wary. I mentioned typos, not spelling errors: see the underlined words in the quote below.

The copyright of the images would undoubtedly remain yours we could just like you to grant us permission to syndicate them on your behalf.

Could I perhaps arrange to discuss with this with you in more detail? Perhaps chat to you quickly over the phone?

Yes, Mike, regardless of our level of education and literacy skills we all make typos, including internet scammers, as I am sure you are aware, and it is generally recognised (here at least) that grammatical errors etc should alert people to possible fraud.

You are free to disagree, I simply contributed by humble opinion.

[Glenn NK]

After reading "flashback's" post and links, it sounds like a good place to run FROM (Caters).

In regard to spelling differences, in Canada we tend to follow the same spellings used in Britain, and I would have suspected that the other "colonies" (NZ, AU) would too. Am I wrong? harbour, neighbour, etc. as opposed to our friends south of us; harbor, neighbor. My spell checker calls me on harbour. LOL

Glenn

[Bobobird]

Thanks everyone. Lots to digest. I am going to let it ride over the weekend.

From other research - she posts invitations on flickr etc

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronnyengelmann/9418400248/

https://twitter.com/Lianna24

Her -


Lets see if any other salient points turn up and I will do a shortlist and post it here.

Should be useful for anyone in a similar future situation.

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For now, it looks like I will be saying no but before that would want her to send me a ballpark earning estimate, the life term of the "syndication", and their legal people (not her) to send me a draft contract to look at.

[William W]

I DELETED MY POST.

I suggested that you confirm the journalist's identity and accountability of her actions.

My contribution is meaningless as I now realized that you have identified the "journalist" as being connected to the newswire: that is indicated by the twitter feed.

WW

On a side note - my opinion is that the on-line news agency and also the "journalist" are not of any high journalistic calibre.