Zurich - New Year's Resolutions--For Fish!

Now Out on Kindle! Thanks to Everyone who Voted.

It’s that time of year again where I indulge myself in talking about the release of my annual New Year’s Resolutions book.

I’d kind of committed to releasing 25 New Year’s Resolutions – For Fish! (NYR Fish!) in October this year, since I’d stated the date in my other books ( –For Dogs! and –For Cats!). At the time, I hadn’t realized that I would be back doing a full-time job in Zurich. It would have been much easier to get it out in time if I hadn’t needed to work!

I also didn’t know that I would be so busy in September (I haven’t had a single free weekend), so it’s been a bit stressful getting it done and even now I’ve only managed to get the kindle version out so far (although the paperback should follow this week, if I’ve done the set-up correctly).

NYR Fish! was enjoyable to write as it took me back to being in Sahl Hasheesh and my daily swims; those swims already feel like another world now. I’ve even started to forget the names of some of the fish, whereas when I was living in Egypt I was completely absorbed in it. Most evenings I would spend time reading my guide books and trying to identify which fish I might have seen that day.

As usual, selecting photographs was the most time-consuming part of the process. On this occasion, it was a bit of a mixture between my previous two techniques. I had the resolutions first and then found the photographs, but some of the resolutions had been inspired by photographs that I knew I already had.

Collecting fish is allegedly the second most popular hobby in the world, and to my great joy this was borne out by there being loads of good photographs available on Flickr.com. Unfortunately, there were two resolutions (“Do the longest poo” and “Contribute to the environment”) where I experienced particular difficulty in identifying a suitable picture. I’d found two really good options on the internet (one of which had inspired that first resolution), but neither of them had an attribution to the photographer. Consequently, I was stumped as to how to get the copyright / permission for using it in my book. I spent quite a lot of time sending out enquiries, but to no avail.

At one point, I considered risking it and adding a note in the copyright section of my book asking the photographers to come forward if they found their work printed in my book. Neither of them were professional photographers, so I didn’t think I was taking away income from them.

But I chickened out. I re-read all the copyright stuff that I’m so familiar with. I even toyed with the idea that maybe I could argue that the photographs were being used for commentary. But in the end I had to admit that I shouldn’t really use them without permission.

I also discovered a blog where someone had been prosecuted and fined for using photographs from the internet, even though she hadn’t used the photographs for commercial purposes and she’d removed the photographs immediately once she realized she was breaking the law.

And then I read claims that one company finds people who have not asked for permission to reproduce photographs, they then purchase up the copyright themselves, and subsequently prosecute those people for using them without permission. These rumours may well be completely false, and in my opinion it’s dodgy on legal grounds (at the time of implementation, the photographs were not under that company’s copyright), but it was enough to scare me. Having said that, I can’t see how anyone could have located the photographers of the photos I wanted to use because I, at least, found it impossible.

Anyway, I ended up playing safe and staying 100% legal. Life is too short for the potential stress that could occur later.

But it left me with a problem, because I couldn’t find any Creative Commons-licensed images to fit my needs. I ended up looking at photographs with rights reserved where I could find out who the creator was in order to ask for permission. I got there in the end, but it was a lot of work that you don’t really appreciate when you look at the end product.

I’ve also learned from past experience to keep a screen grab of the Creative Commons license for each photograph; I’ve had cases in the past where people have removed the Creative Commons license and demanded money as soon as I informed them that I’d used their picture in my book. I couldn’t argue that they were bound by the agreement, because I had no proof that they had initially licensed their work under Creative Commons for commercial use. In these cases, I’ve always removed the photograph and used another one – I’m not going to reward that kind of behaviour!

Anyway, the kindle version (US, UK) of NYR Fish! is now available; the paperback should be out by the end of this week, with any luck. To find out about price changes, free giveaways, etc, just visit and like the dedicated facebook page!