The Two Lines She Couldn’t Afford: A Debut Novelist on the Epigraph and the Permissions Invoice

The artifact is a permissions invoice, and the decision it records is smaller than it looks: two lines of a song, set above the first page of a novel, priced at $1,000 for five years. The novelist declined. The epigraph came out. The book was published without it.

That is the whole story in miniature, and it is worth telling plainly because the epigraph is the one quotation in a novel that publishers treat differently from everything in the body of the text. A line of poetry quoted inside a scene can sometimes be argued as fair use. The same line, placed alone on a page before Chapter One, is treated by many publishers as a separate licensing event — one with a fee, a term, a territory, and a reapplication date attached.

For a debut novelist, the epigraph is therefore not a decorative flourish chosen at the end of drafting. It is a drafting decision with a price attached, and the invoice arrives whether or not the author thought to budget for it.

The documented case: what the invoice actually said

The clearest public account comes from novelist Jackie Lea Sommers, who wrote in 2015 about seeking permissions for her debut novel Truest. Her itemized results are unusually specific, and they are worth reading as a kind of price list:

One line of an E.E. Cummings poem: free.
Two lines of a Billy Collins poem: $290 for the first print run of 10,000 copies, after which she would need to reapply. She agreed.
One entire E.E. Cummings poem: $560. She agreed, because several scenes hinge on it.
Two lines of lyrics from a Pink Floyd song: $1,000 for five years, after which she would need to reapply. She declined.

Her reasoning about the Pink Floyd lines is the part that matters for any debut novelist facing a similar invoice. The lyrics were going to be the novel’s epigraph. They fit the book perfectly. But they did not appear in the manuscript itself, and $1,000 for two lines that sit outside the story was, in her judgment, too much. She wrote later that she had also wanted a line from C.S. Lewis and the refrain from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and took both out “with frazzled nerves and empty pockets” without changing the story.

That last clause is the useful one. The story did not change. The epigraph was not load-bearing.

Why the epigraph is treated differently

Publishers’ house guidelines are not law, but they are the practical rules a debut novelist will be measured against, and several of them say the same thing about epigraphs.

Rowman & Littlefield’s permissions guide states the position directly: “Since epigraphs are used in a place of prominence within a text, they do not fall under the fair use exception and always require reprint permissions (unless the material is in the public domain).” The guide adds that this is “especially true if they serve as embellishments or to ‘set the scene.'”

InterVarsity Press’s quotation guidelines reach the same conclusion in a single sentence: “The use of poetry or lyrics in callouts and epigraphs always requires permission.”

Penguin Random House UK’s permissions request form asks authors to specify “whether this will be used as an epigraph (this is a short quotation at the beginning of a book or chapter) or in the body of the text” — a distinction built into the request form itself.

These are house rules, not statutes. But they reflect a widely shared reading of the fair use factors: an epigraph is used in a place of prominence, often for atmosphere rather than analysis, and it is not surrounded by commentary that would weigh toward transformation. The U.S. Copyright Office’s fair use guidance notes that courts look at “the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole,” and that “using even a small amount of a copyrighted work was determined not to be fair because the selection was an important part—or the ‘heart’—of the work.” Two lines of a song can be the heart of the song.

The Copyright Office is equally clear that there is no safe line count: “there is no formula to ensure that a predetermined percentage or amount of a work—or specific number of words, lines, pages, copies—may be used without permission.”

So the question “how many lines can I use without permission?” has no reliable answer. The better question is the one Sommers asked herself: does the book need these lines, or does it merely want them?

What the invoice is actually licensing

A permissions invoice is not a single number. It is a bundle of rights, and the fee depends on which ones the author asks for. The publisher guidelines are consistent about what to request:

Print and electronic formats. Rowman & Littlefield’s guide tells authors to “request permission rights for print (hardback and paper) and electronic formats.” InterVarsity Press warns that if permission does not include ebook rights, the publisher may not be able to release an ebook edition at all — and that separate ebook rights “may be 50% or more of the original fee.”
World rights. InterVarsity asks for worldwide permission so the publisher can sell the book internationally.
Life of the book, or a long enough term. InterVarsity advises obtaining permission for the life of the book, or, if that is not possible, “for enough copies to cover estimated sales for the first five (5) years.” The guide notes that renewing permissions limited by quantity or time “is difficult to manage well and the copyright holder may charge an additional fee for the renewal.”

The Pink Floyd quote Sommers received — $1,000 for five years — is a term license. Five years is a reasonable window for a debut novel’s initial sales life, but it is not the life of the book. If the novel stays in print, someone has to reapply, and the fee at that point is whatever the rights holder sets then.

Who pays? InterVarsity states it plainly: “All permission fees are the responsibility of the author.” Some publishers will pay the fee and deduct it from royalties if funds are available, but the default assumption for a debut novelist should be that the invoice is theirs.

A planning example, clearly hypothetical

No public record exists of a Portland debut novelist’s epigraph invoice, and this essay will not invent one. But the arithmetic is general enough to be useful as a planning exercise, labeled as such.

Suppose a debut novelist has finished a draft and wants a four-line epigraph from a contemporary song. Before the manuscript goes to copyedits, the useful steps are:

Identify the rights holder. For song lyrics, that is usually the music publisher, not the recording artist. The publisher’s permissions page will say what information the request needs: the lines, the page or section, the intended use (epigraph or body text), the formats, the print run, the retail price, the territories, and the publication date.
Ask for the rights the book actually needs. Print and electronic, world, life of the book. A short-term license is cheaper up front and more expensive later.
Get the number before the schedule tightens. Rowman & Littlefield’s guide advises authors to begin requesting permissions as soon as possible, because books cannot go into typesetting until all permissions are received. A permissions request that lands during copyedits is a permissions request that can delay the book.
Decide with the manuscript open. If the epigraph is decorative — atmosphere, a mood, a gesture toward the book’s influences — cutting it costs the novel nothing. If a scene hinges on the quoted lines, the fee is a real production cost and should be budgeted like one.

The decision rule that follows is not subtle. A decorative epigraph is a luxury good. A load-bearing epigraph is a cost of goods. The mistake is treating a luxury good as a cost of goods, or discovering the price after the book is otherwise finished.

What the artifact teaches

The permissions invoice is a drafting document. It records a decision the author made about what the book needs, and it arrives at a moment — after the manuscript is written, before the book is typeset — when the author still has room to change their mind.

Sommers paid $850 total for the permissions she kept: $290 for the Collins lines, $560 for the Cummings poem. She declined the $1,000 Pink Floyd epigraph and removed two other quotations she had wanted. The novel was published. The story did not change.

The epigraph that survives is the one the book actually needs. The invoice is how the author finds out which one that is.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need permission to use a short epigraph from a song or poem?

Under many publishers’ house guidelines, yes. Rowman & Littlefield’s guide states that epigraphs “always require reprint permissions (unless the material is in the public domain),” and InterVarsity Press states that “the use of poetry or lyrics in callouts and epigraphs always requires permission.” These are publisher policies, not statutes, but they are the rules a debut novelist will be asked to follow.

Is there a line count or percentage that is automatically safe?

No. The U.S. Copyright Office states that “there is no formula to ensure that a predetermined percentage or amount of a work—or specific number of words, lines, pages, copies—may be used without permission.” Fair use is decided case by case, and even a small excerpt can weigh against fair use if it is the “heart” of the original work.

What rights should I ask for?

Print and electronic formats, worldwide territory, and permission for the life of the book — or, if that is not available, enough copies to cover estimated sales for the first five years. InterVarsity Press warns that renewing a time- or quantity-limited permission is difficult and may cost an additional fee.

Who pays the permissions fee?

InterVarsity Press states that “all permission fees are the responsibility of the author,” though some publishers will pay the fee and deduct it from royalties if funds are available. A debut novelist should plan on paying.

What if I can’t afford the epigraph?

Cut it, or replace it with public-domain material. Sommers’s own advice, after her experience, was to “use material from the public domain or else make it up yourself.” If the epigraph is decorative, cutting it costs the novel nothing. If a scene depends on the quoted lines, the fee is a production cost to budget before the manuscript is final.

Sources

Jackie Lea Sommers, “Seeking Publisher Permissions, Part II,” March 20, 2015. jackieleasommers.com
Rowman & Littlefield and Lexington Books, Permissions Guide, updated July 2022. PDF
InterVarsity Press, “Quotation Permissions Guidelines.” ivpress.com
Penguin Random House UK, “Permissions.” penguin.co.uk
U.S. Copyright Office, “Fair Use Index.” copyright.gov