Young Readers and COPPA Compliance
If you are an author of children’s literature (especially middle-grade fiction) or your work targets young readers, then make sure your marketing efforts are COPPA compliant. What is COPPA? COPPA is the Children’s...
Legal Challenges Of Writing Unauthorized Biographies
Biographies are grouped into two categories: biographies written with the subject’s permission and cooperation, aka authorized biographies, and biographies written without the subject’s permission and cooperation, aka...
Book Covers And Copyrights
A writer this week asked about using preexisting book covers to create a new cover for a book she was publishing. Book cover copyrights are a topic I’m questioned about often. Who owns the book cover art — the artist, the...
Pre-publication Legal Review Of Manuscripts — Six Things To Consider
One of the most essential steps an author must take prior to publication is to review their manuscript for risk of liability and legally sensitive material, otherwise know as “vetting” the manuscript. Not all books require...
Using Song Lyrics In Fiction
I hear this question often — “Can I use song lyrics in my fiction?” I completely understand. Music provides great inspiration for writers. A few lines from “In Da Club” by 50 Cent could be brilliant character insight....
Creative Theft – Plagiarism vs. Copyright Infringement
“Good artists copy; great artists steal.” The quote is widely attributed to Picasso. Most likely, the idea existed before Picasso made it famous. The literature is littered with much older discussions of how artistic theft...
Prose, Plots, and Plagiarism — How To Avoid Literary Theft
Steal a plot. Crib a phrase. Imitate someone’s prose. I often hear this advice in my writing communities. And every time, that old high school taboo stored in the rafters of my brain screeches, “That’s plagiarism!” I understand...