Warning From Your Book's Legal Dept.

There's a world of caution to be heeded between writing and publishing

Photo by SAJAD FI on Unsplash

Legal consultations about the risks embedded in a given manuscript can go on for hours — sometimes more than ten hours.

Hello Loreates,

This isn’t the post I expected to be writing this week, but then reality happened.

When you write (or ghost) a book that’s at all controversial for a Big 5 publisher, the legal department will likely weigh in around the same time the book is copy edited. And publication, as well as payment, may depend on satisfying their concerns.

This has never happened to me before, but this week it did. One reason is that it takes a whole lot less in today’s climate to make a book “controversial.” The other is that, if you get sued as an author, your book’s publisher (usually) is on the hook with you. Right now, big publishers are big targets for litigation, and they’re in no mood to invite more.

The grotesque irony is that our society is drowning in the lies of so-called leaders, manufacturers, influencers, and toxic entrepreneurs who operate in untouchable anonymity— not to mention the tsunami of AI deceptions bearing down on us. The line between fact and fiction has never been more dubious. But the perception that everybody lies and cheats makes authors suspect, too. This means that the onus has never been greater on authors to make sure their work is squeaky clean.

While I’m not about to reveal anything about the book I’m ghosting, I do think it’s important for you to know what this vetting process looks like, what kinds of issues are triggers for legal concern, and what you can do to protect yourself. This goes triple or quadruple for you self-published authors who have no legal department behind you. So, that’s the subject of today’s post.

Read on!

Aimee

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Not only are multi-dimensional villains more intriguing for readers but their true-life models are less likely to take offense if you include nuance and their positive as well as negative traits.

When should you start covering your legal ass?

I’ve always advised my students to write as if everyone they know is dead, and I always will. It’s the only way to hear your own voice and figure out what you have— and need — to say as you compose. The only way to write free of criticism and fear. The only way to silence the chattering critics, naysayers, secret-keepers and fearmongers among families and friends. Especially when you’re getting started on a project, and even more particularly when you’re writing about embarrassing or criminal experiences or topics, you simply must give yourself the mental space to explore every inch of your story without worrying about anyone looking over your shoulder and second-guessing you.

But there comes a point in the publishing timeline when you must acknowledge that the living aren’t really dead. And that the trusted, beloved members of your writers’ group and editorial team aren’t the only ones who will react to whatever you have written. That’s when you need to start the sometimes lengthy process of covering your legal ass.