Doing Interviews Before Selling a Book

[Mamawamba]

I have an idea for a non-fiction book and I'm not sure if it will go anywhere. I've been writing in educational publishing for five years and I've had this idea for a non-fiction book for most of that time. I've put off any further assignments to develop this idea for a while. Right now I'm in the early stages of seeing if I can develop a book devoted to this theme, which is the lives of military wives. (I've been one for ten years.)

I want to get as many responses as possible to a questionnaire I've made up. I plan to use quotes obtained by the questionnaire and subsequent interviews in my book. Is there any way to get permission to use the quotes in publication before actually selling the book? Is telling the people before they are interviewed or fill out the questionnaire that their responses may be used in a book enough? I would hate to waste my time, and the time of the people I'm interviewing, if I can't guarantee that I'll be able to use what they say in this book.

[aka eraser]

I've been working on a similar project for a while now. What I've done (and I'm not yet 100% sure it protects my authorial buns) is tell all prospective subjects in my preamble to the questionnaire that: 1 - I'll change all names and identifying info (in fact, I don't ask for names) and 2 - That by responding to the questionnaire they're authorizing the information to be used by me for a proposed book.

[Mamawamba]

Thanks. I put a little note at the top of the questionnaire that I may use their responses in an article or book. I asked for names and at least a contact email address so that their identity can be verfied and any kind of release that might be necessary can be obtained. I had to sign a release for quotes from an article I wrote to be used, but that might have been because it had already been published.