Phantex, I take your point but if you have any connections with the aviation publishing industry (books and magazines) you’ll know that most of us “jobbing writers” do the work for peanuts. We certainly don’t get reproduction fee budgets with which to pay for photographs, and in effect we’re left to do everything ourselves at our own expense, being paid just once for the finished product. So generally it’s a lot of work for not very much money. Can’t speak for anyone else but if I was qualified to do some other sort of job, I think I’d be doing it by now, as then I’d probably have a bank balance that wasn’t in deficit!
Ultimately, most projects like this rely on the goodwill of contributors to a greater or lesser degree. The best that can be done is to credit pictures to the person who took them or supplied them. Sometimes it’s possible to provide a contributor with a free copy of the finished book, but even that doesn’t happen very often as publishers generally only provide six free copies for the author, so they tend to disappear rather quickly. For example, I haven’t even got my own copy of my recently-published Lightning book as I had to give them all away!
Of course it’s a two-way street and I always help other people whenever I can with information or photographs. I’ve lost count of the number of books and magazines which include photographs I’ve taken, but that’s fine, I’m happy to help when I can. I don’t think I could be accused of being anything less than helpful. I gave an enthusiast my last copy of a book I wrote twenty years ago a few weeks back – for free – because he wanted one.
Anyway, sorry if it looks like I’m taking advantage but that’s really not how it is. It was a simple request and of course nobody is obliged to help! Thankfully the greater proportion of aviation enthusiasts are generally happy to help if only to ensure that books are as good as they can be – and that’s certainly a good thing.
Pure Lightning, I’m afraid the Canberra idea seems to have been put on hold for the time being. It’s something I wanted to do (and still do) but the publishers are very reluctant to look at anything much at present (thanks to the financial climate) and Canberra was one of a few ideas which looked good but so far hasn’t got any further than a general agreement that it would be a good idea! But I guess it might go-ahead maybe later in the year when things hopefully improve.
568 Crew, the photos sound interesting – if you get a chance to do a thumbnail copy or something (?), do let me know. I have a feeling that I might have the in-flight shot but it’s very difficult to be certain without seeing it as there are quite a few similar pictures but often with slight (and interesting) variations. Same applies to the factory shot – I have some, but yours might be a different one!
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