Permission Guidelines    

Please read the following information to determine if you need to submit a request for permission.

 

Authors often ask us to clarify what they are and are not responsible for when it comes to permissions, artwork, quoting from other sources, and indexes. 
            
In brief, unless otherwise noted in your contract, you are responsible for obtaining permission (and paying any fees) for all copyrighted material that you use in your book.

This includes:

   

     • More than 500 words taken from any single printed source not in the public domain    

     • Or any substantial proportion of a shorter printed work (even if it’s less than 500 words)    

     • More than a line or two of poetry or song lyric not in the public domain     

     • All copyrighted artwork and photography   

     • All tables and charts taken from any copyrighted source  

     • Possibly even portions of your own writing if they have been published elsewhere  

     
The following paragraphs spell out in more detail your responsibility in this regard, including a model letter that you may use when making permission requests.
  

There are no hard and fast rules that govern the application of fair use, since each instance has its own particular set of facts that must all be weighed in determining whether a ‘use’ is “fair use.â€Â  To make such a determination, please take into account the following factors: 
 
1. The length of the quoted passage in relation to the length of the copyrighted work from which it is taken (not in relation to the work in which it is used by the borrowing author).

2. The qualitative significance of the passage in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; that is:

Is the passage the ‘heart’ of the copyrighted work or merely an incidental or minor segment?

3. The manner in which the borrowed passage is used:

Is the passage used in an illustrative, critical, or instructive context? Or is the passage borrowed passage?

Is the passage quoted within the text of the book for purposes of comment or criticism?

4. The nature of the copyrighted work from which the passage is taken:

Is it published or unpublished source? (The scope of the fair use privilege is significantly reduced for unpublished works.)

Is the passage factual and mostly informative in content, or is it more expressive and fanciful, more “literary�

5. The effect of the use of the material on the potential market for the copyrighted work, including the market for granting rights and permissions to use the copyrighted work.

Although there are no easy formulas for analyzing the above factors and applying them to a given set of facts, in general, an author will usually have to obtain permission for the following:

1. Prose quotations or the close paraphrasing of 300 words or more from any full length book (either a single citation or the total of several shorter quotations from a single work.
2. Prose quotations or the close paraphrasing of 100 words or more from an article or periodical piece.
3. More than 300 words from a full length play or 100 words from a one act play.
4. One or more lines of a poem, unless it is of epic proportion, in which case more lines may be used depending on their qualitative and quantitative relationship to the entire copyrighted work.

Curriculum

 

Third-Party Material

 

Out of Print

 

Text and Image Requests

 

Seasonal Titles Text and Image Requests
The following seasonal books contain the number of illustrations in each book. Please indicate on the permission request form how many illustrations you would like to use and it's primary use.

        -Mary's First Christmas: 23 illustrations
        -Legend of the Candy Cane: 14 illusrations
        -Leged of the Christmas Tree: 14 illustrations
        -Legend of the Christmas Stocking: 15 illustrations
        

Advertising Requests

 

Book Review Requests

 

For further inquiries please email: zpermissions@zondervan.com.