Work-related stuff

I may have men­tioned to some of you that I thought I’d had a wind­fall: the Copy­right Agency Lim­ited had con­tac­ted me saying they were hold­ing $3000 on my behalf as they’d found someone who’d breached the copy­right act by copy­ing an art­icle of mine. Could I claim for it? Sure, I said. 

But then my ex-boss, Phil Keir of Next, got in on the act, saying the copy­right belonged to him. He pro­duced a con­tract – that I thought applied to my work as an editor, not to my work as a writer – that is worded in such a way that I can’t leg­ally fight it. I was a fool for sign­ing the con­tract, but hell, I was 24 at the time. I am now older and wiser and a closer reader of copy­right clauses. (Fair­fax and News and most other major com­pan­ies buy first rights and per­petual elec­tronic stor­age rights, but you keep copy­right). You cur­rent Next slaves may wish to check your contracts.

I have sent him a strongly worded letter con­ced­ing, but sug­gest­ing it would be appro­pri­ate for him to pay me a per­cent­age of the amount and telling him the con­tract is disgraceful.

So much for apply­ing for the edit­or­ship of Rolling Stone which is cur­rently being advertised.

In other news, Lonely Planet wrote back to me yes­ter­day saying they liked my book idea and could I send them a pitch doc­u­ment with chapter outlines.

Also, Good Week­end editor Fenella Souter is finally leav­ing after 7 years… my dream job, up for grabs… I will apply, but I think I prob­ably need a few more years experience. 

I have lots of other pro­jects on the burner but none of them are giving me money right this second… offers of feed­ing grate­fully accepted…