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Why Writers Get Sued and Myths of Liability Shields I recently posted about a practice of some self-published authors creating LLCs as the publishers of their books and the belief that they would be personally insulated against legal action. A question was asked: how does a writer protect their assets for what they have written? The answer is simple. Don’t write about real people, places, and companies, don’t steal other writers' work, and don’t violate copyright. Believing that you can insulate yourself from liability is a pipe dream. The common reasons writers get sued are: copyright infringement, defamation and libel, privacy violations, trademark infringement. Defamation and libel involve publishing false statements about someone. Revealing private information about a person, even if true, can also land you in legal jeopardy under specific state privacy statutes. Myths of Liability Shields Traditional publisher: They will go after the publishing company, not me. Here is an example of a portion of a clause from one of my traditional contracts under the author's warranty and indemnification. The writer represents and warrants that the work does not contain any libelous material, and is not in violation of any rights of privacy or any other rights of third persons, and does not violate any existing common law or statutory copyrights. A plaintiff might go after the publisher, and then the publisher will go after you or convince the court you are liable. I created a Self-Published LLC: Consult with an attorney when you get sued, and you will likely be advised that the plaintiff will be able to ‘pierce the veil” and show that you are, in fact, the only person behind this entity and are personally liable for its actions. Only on WDC(some other website) Not Really Published: Wrong. Posting on WDC is a form of publication. Read the WDC the terms of service agreement item three and six regarding copyright and your liability for your own conduct. This posting is not legal advice.  |
Deceiving the Reader? I came across an article that referenced self-published authors creating LLCs as the ‘publishers’ of their book. That sounded weird, so I did a little research, and apparently it is a thing for some self-published authors. I found several articles discussing this strategy. One article states the most important reason for this approach is that it makes your book look more professional. Basically, the idea is to make potential readers think (deceive them) that your book was published by a traditional publisher. So much for pride of authorship. The article also claims this approach insulates you from liability and protects your personal assets. As a retired attorney, single-owner LLCs do not provide substantial protection from personal liability. A plaintiff with an attorney can easily pierce the ‘corporate veil’ and come after your personal assets. You can also get entangled in failing to comply with doing business as (DBA) regulatory requirements. https://www.ineedabookcover.com/why-self-publishing-authors-should-consider-crea... Putting aside the self-publishing versus traditional publishing arguments, isn’t it hypocritical and even a bit deceptive to try to make your self-published book like it was traditionally published? Or am I missing a broader perspective? |
S🤦♂️  - Yes, I guess I should have qualified my comment. I see a distinction if the intent of the LLC is a platform for the writer and to edit and publish other writers. That's a bit different from the discussion I was reading about, focused on individual writers publishing their own work. |
dogpack saving 4premium+  - The answer is simple. Don’t write about real people, places, and companies, don’t steal other writers' work, and don’t violate copyright. Believing that you can insulate yourself from liability is a pipe dream. See my recent posting on why writers get sued. |
Two Million Dollar Book Deal Crash and Burn So, AI is easily detectable and not a threat to human writers? Have you followed the recent debacle involving the debut novel Call Me I’ll Hide the Body by Jerry Falade? A fourteen-party auction coordinated by agents who vetted the book was won by the Macmillan publishing house Minotaur. The book and its development had been vetted for AI by the agents and the bidders. After the auction, the agents withdrew the book from sale on suspicion that the author had used AI. Saying in an email. “Jerry Falade produced an incredible manuscript that dazzled us and the top publishing professionals around the world. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to authenticate how the manuscript fully evolved from origin to completion.” The author denies the claims about using AI; victim or fraudster? A sad tale either way. Every technology has a risk/reward balance. I think society might learn too late that the downsides of AI far outweigh the benefits. Well beyond its use in creative writing. |
CONFUSING FREELANCE JOB POSTING In searching for freelance jobs that you can do from home, the most common filter for location is REMOTE. Imagine you come across a freelance writing job posting that says "Remote" but also indicates "onsite"? What the heck? Yes, Remote, Oregon, is where a posted job is located. |
Curious Feature of New Literary Magazine Came across a new publication looking for submissions that has an interesting twist to how they publish stories. They have yet to publish their inaugural issue and are building up their ‘bank’ of stories. They pay $50 flat rate on acceptance, stories from 1500 to 5000 words. Here is the curious twist quoted from their website: By submitting to Betascape, you are actively consenting to have your work published alongside inline editorial commentary and a focused craft breakdown. If you are seeking traditional, silent publication or are uncomfortable with your story’s mechanics being discussed in a public, educational forum, Betascape may not be the right fit for your piece. You can find them at https://www.betascapemagazine.com/about |
Max Griffin 🏳️🌈  - Damon Nomad - I've been following this conversation since it was initiated, and I'm still looking for that "confused" emoji, the more so since Max has done the research. I have the impression that Damon is going to do this anyway, and I sincerely hope you don't get hurt. A rule of thumb that has spared me considerable grief is this: A legitimate business wants to sell you a product or service, and will clearly lay out what they offer and their advantages over their competitors. They may hide a fee in the small print, but basically, they want you to be satisfied, to do repeat business, and to tell all your friends about them. A scammer deliberately obfuscates what they offer because they don't want you to figure it out. The only red flag missing here is "You must respond within the next thirty minutes!" If Stephen King or J.K. Rowling were starting a new magazine to compete with Kirkus Reviews, that might be worth looking into. But who is this? "Some guy" who has self-published one book? I've self-published four, so what does that make me? Thing is, I will review ~ have reviewed ~ your work here for free in a semiprivate setting, and you can use that review to improve your story if you see fit before you submit it for publication. In order to justify the purpose for this magazine, this guy is going to have to find fault and publicize it in a format in which you will never have the opportunity to rebut or improve the story. This sounds, at best, like a vanity project for someone who's trying to look like a literary big shot, and at worst like a failed writer who's looking to receive almost-ready stories and change them just enough so that it isn't your work anymore, and then publish under his own name. This is all my opinion based on what Damon and Max have provided. It could be the start of a trend that will sweep the literary world, but if it turned up in my yahoo.com mailbox, I would spam and block faster than Wyatt Earp could draw and shoot. It's good that you're having this conversation, and you're going to do what you're going to do. I'll just offer Damon the same advice they give boxers before every bout: Protect yourself at all times! ~ Jack ...  |
Phantom Reviewer  - I found it unusual and curious. I have never paid for.editors or beta readers and have sometimes gotten great feedback from editors who have ultimately passed on publishing one of my stories. I don't know what this guy's motives are. I'm skeptical he will be successful with this as a publication, not.much of an.audience. I suspect he and is likely trying to build a client base for his work as an editor. I'm having a hard time assuming he is up to something dark and he is transparent about what he is going to do. So what if you have one of.your stories on a website with some commentary about how one editor thinks it falls short. Myself, I have a growing list of traditional credits, I wouldn't sweat it. |
| Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 - Respect your views. I'm skeptical of his success with this endeavour but I don't think.any hardworking author working on their craft would suffer some harm just from submitting. |
Avoid this Avoidable Mistake As stories get longer, approaching novelette or novella range. Say 10,000 to 20,000 words, the setting of a story becomes a stronger element. With a short story in the range of 3,000 words or so, the focus tends to be on plot and character development; only so much can be devoted to setting. An interesting side effect of this is the consequence of choosing a ‘real setting’, something I think S🤦♂️  posted about when he came across a story set in Australia where the writer got some basic geography wrong. It’s one thing to slip in a sort of ‘exotic’ place like a Japanese town by a brief reference with a vague description in a short story. But in a longer piece, be careful about details if it’s somewhere you have never been. Reconsider if you really need to use that setting. Do you really understand the fauna, culture, weather, and geography of that region? For example, potatoes don’t grow well everywhere in the potato state of Idaho. There are also a lot of state regulations around growing potatoes for commerce. You get these details wrong, and you might be unpleasantly surprised that some readers and reviewers have been to that region of Russia, China, or the Middle East. Maybe one of them calls you out on it in a public way, like an Amazon review. I recently saw a story that made me curious if the writer realized the risk they were taking. I stick to fictional places that may be set in regions and places that are real. I use places where I have traveled extensively or even lived. Both of my published novels include cultural and geographic references to far-flung places in the Far East and the Middle East, places where I had lived for years. I was still cautious and avoided references to actual buildings or people, which has its own set of risks. Do you really know your setting? Are you taking an unnecessary risk by choosing something that seems exciting or exotic? |
| I agree. Setting is critical. It brings the story to life every bit as much as an action-filled plot or interesting characters. Getting the details wrong is worse than leaving them out entirely. There's an interactive story that occasionally shows up in the advertised stories section and one of the first decisions is an option to go to St. John, USVI. If you choose that option you hop on a plane and end up at the St. John airport - which does not exist. The island is 90% National Park. It does not have an airport. At that point I clicked off and didn't bother going further. If you're well-traveled that opens up a whole host of interesting locale to set your story. If you're not, it's better to not try to BS the reader. Either go light on the setting even though the story suffers, or maybe think about places you've lived/visited and think about what makes them unique/different, and try to bring that out in your story. Your character doesn't have to be from New York or Bora-Bora. They can be from Keokuk or Ipswich. Every place has something that can be brought to life. Even if you think the place sucks and you hate it there, a good character can bring that out, too. |
Beholden  - I'm not so sure. There's a lot of bad fantasy out there where the setting doesn't make sense and doesn't have a good explanation. There are all sorts of weird things that happen in real life that we just accept because we know they're real. Think red and black insects that glow yellow in the dark. Sounds absurd except that we never give fireflies a second thought. If I read that in a fantasy novel with no effort put into justifying its existence, I'm rolling my eyes. Do it more than once or twice and I'm moving on to another book. |
Writers Corner on Gold Coast Radio "Note: CHANGE IN TIME!!
I will be on the rad..." Caught S🤦♂️ whole broadcast while taking a break from writing: one short story to start, autobiographical, I think; several poems and some drabbles. Caught some Neil Diamond and an advert for funeral services if I happen to pass down under. Well done! The sound was a little off today, but it was good. See his future announcements and drop in if you have a chance. |
A New Kind of Publisher? I saw a submission call from what seemed to be a traditional publisher through a service that is careful only to offer traditional publishing offers. I think this one slipped through the cracks. They claim they are a new kind of publishing arrangement, a publishing collective. Bottom line after reading a bit, they are just a disguised hybrid/self-publishing outfit. Your submissions, after this inaugural anthology, will require a small fee as they evaluate your submission for fit and quality. Take a look and decide for yourself. I will not be submitting anything to Crypsis Press. {link: https://crypsispress.com/about} |
Two Young Writers at a Bar One: I’m gonna be just like Edgar Allan Poe. Two (with a smirk and snort): Just like him? Really? He was found near death in an alley and died days later, alone and penniless. He was only 40. One: Yeah, that’s what I’m going for. I don’t much care for his writing. |
Content Writer? Last half of last year, I had a fun and good-paying freelance job, developing characters, a plot summary document, and then writing character dialog scripts for an online game developer. I posted about the experience a few times. Check my notebook if you are interested, or send me a note. Anyway. If you have done any freelance writing or hunted for freelance writing, you have no doubt come across advertisements for Content Writers. I would like to find an easier gig, Non-content Writer, you know, get paid for typing gibberish. |
S🤦♂️ - Steve. Please step away from the keyboard. Our system has detected sarcasm directed at our collective embedded consciousness.  |
Cleaning Up Loose Ends Making sure all of those plotlines are neatly tied up is a tendency I have in writing drafts. This is one of the things I have learned to manage as I edit and polish: not every loose end needs to be tied up. The timing and speed at which this happens are also critically important. The genre and tone should also guide the writer. A hardboiled crime mystery usually needs a tighter storyline than a paranormal horror story. I keep my eye on the plot, but as I have gotten more experienced, I have learned not to be a slave to what I thought the story should look like. Take a look at your stories' loose ends as you polish and edit. It's helped me along the path of continual improvement, I hope. |
Non Rejection Rejection? From a response I got recently from a publisher who had a massive response to an anthology: Sadly, on this occasion, we are going to decline to take this forward, and are returning the submission to you. This is not the same as a rejection, in that if you feel it would be a good fit for a future anthology, and you have not placed it elsewhere, then we would be happy to see it again. Naw, its still a rejection. |
| That is truly a good one, and I thank you for sharing. It recalls to mind a rejection from a Chinese economic journal quoted in the Financial Times, and collected in The Writer's Quotation Book: "We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any other work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity." I've tried to think of a clever concluding quip, but words fail me ... |
Elycia Lee ☮  - The standard rejection is usually not to submit a story previously rejected. I think they were saying this was close to making the final cut for this anthology (400 plus submissions), and they would be open to considering it again in a future call. |
A Fitting Decision for July 4th The title of my post from Dec. 2024 asked a question about a then-brewing controversy. "Note: What Does “ Subject to the Jurisdiction ” mean..." This is a critical clause in the 14th Amendment for birthright citizenship. I read the opinion of the court and portions of the dissents in the Jun 30, 2026, decision in Trump v Barbara. IMHO, the majority opinion provides a well-reasoned, legally sound, and a just answer to this question. In striking down President Trump's Executive Order 14160, the court opinion noted in the closing paragraph that “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to 'every free-born person in this land.” A fitting decision and sentiment for the nation's 250th birthday. |
Unleash the Hounds I saw some recent posts about the bots that seem to scrape the WDC site every month or two. Your portfolio views suddenly spike up for a day or two. I believe there is a positive outcome for those looking to monetize their writing through traditional publishing, freelance work, or self-publishing. I’ve noticed that many of my posted WDC stories show up in browser searches of only the title, with links back to the WDC website. No doubt some of these bot searches are populating the search engines. I’ve also seen a noticeable increase in results for my pen name that come back to Amazon, All Author, several publishers with my work, and WDC. Maybe a result of a growing number of traditionally published works, but likely also, a result of these bots. I say . . . unleash the hounds! |
| Meh... I got tired of gathering hundreds of "views" on my items without any meaningful interaction involved. And the sites recorded as being linked from made no sense: universities across the globe? I can't even remember the other sites. All my portfolio except for "Everything Else" is now members only. |
un: 
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when I do loosely base a story on someone like I have written about my late husband I am still very careful to make sure it doesn't come directly back to that person in any way. I may mention that my husband was the inspiration, but nothing else is my husband....
I tend to write about things that have lessons in them but avoid characters or places that are indeed real other than towns and states or country names... if I need a business I just choose a word that sounds good to me.
iIalsI also place a disclaimer to this affect in every single work.
If I get asked to create a story that a real child has written, or about someone real I get a lawyer to get legal forms signed and those stories are always always private
i only accept ghost work if everything is completely and thoroughly fiction and verifiable original. I make sure because even ghost stories can be a problem.
when writing technical material I ensure all facts are noted with sources listed if it concerns policies for specific companies I also make sure those policies are not copied from other entities.
I ensure I am protected. law suits based on these issues are not a joke. they can ruin you.
I even try to steer clear of fair use and anything in the public domain... and that is also why I credit everything even inspiration