Finding Inexpensive Legal Counsel for Nonfiction E-Book

CognitionX · Jan 14, 2014

Hello,

I recently decided to e-publish a memoir I wrote about eight years ago about my time working behind a deli counter at a big-box retailer. I shopped a proposal around and got some bites from agents and a smaller publishing house, but nothing stuck and I shelved the project when I moved to New York for a job.

I’ve recently got the itch again to bring ht project back from the dead, but I’ve hit a bit of an issue:

Because I’m writing about a big-box retailer and people I worked with (I’ve changed names and identities, for whatever it’s worth) I figured I’d need a lawyer to look at the manuscript to tell me if I’m committing libel or character defamation.

I’ve quieted some lawyers, but their fees are all relatively high, as I expected. In the end, most are asking for thousands of dollars, which is money I simply don’t have for a writing project.

Does anyone know of legal services for writers that are financially manageable? Does anyone out there have advice on finding legal counsel for a nonfiction story?

Is legal advice really even necessary?

Thank you so much in advance!

JournoWriter · Jan 14, 2014

"You get what you pay for" is a good maxim to remember.

Kerosene · Jan 14, 2014

Why name them at all? Do the same with the identities.
The only reason methinks you'd have seek legal counsel to name this big-box retailer, is in spite. ANAL, but my suggestion is: Don't do that.

Otherwise, yes, you get what you pay for.

Jamesaritchie · Jan 14, 2014

How many memoirs and autobiographies do you read? Most tell the truth, name names, and kick butt. The truth is always the best defense, and it would be a sad world where we couldn't write a memoir or an autobiography, naming names and kicking butt as we go.

What will you do if you find a lawyer, and he lists about twenty things that could be legally risky?

The thing is, a memoir is supposed to be about YOU, not a tool of revenge. If you handle it like this, yours will be one more memoir among the thousands out thee on the shelves that do name names.

Treehouseman · Jan 14, 2014

Books akin to "The Devil Wears Prada" and "The Nanny Diaries" are clearly memoir, yet they skirt legal issues by posing as fiction.

I think that would be an excellent route to go. So instead of being about one big store it could be about ALL of them, and the guessing could begin...

ZachJPayne · Jan 14, 2014

Treehouseman said:
Books akin to "The Devil Wears Prada" and "The Nanny Diaries" are clearly memoir, yet they skirt legal issues by posing as fiction.

I think that would be an excellent route to go. So instead of being about one big store it could be about ALL of them, and the guessing could begin...

I never thought of "The Devil Wears Prada" as anything but fiction. I must re-read -- oh, hell, who am I kidding, I'll re-watch it too.

But that is an interesting bit of advice, and something I'll keep in mind come my turn to start writing memoirs.

Old Hack · Jan 14, 2014

Getting good legal advice is not necessarily going to protect you from legal action.

Presenting something as fiction when it's clearly not is not necessarily going to protect you from legal action.

Please be careful.

Terie · Jan 15, 2014

Jamesaritchie said:
The truth is always the best defense....

It might be the best defense in avoiding a conviction, but it won't spare someone legal costs if a large corporation with deep pockets decides to sue.

As others have said, you get what you pay for. The solicitor I'm working with on a co-writing agreement charges £750 per hour. Hopefully I won't ever need him for anything other than this agreement, but if I do, I have confidence I'll have a top guy fighting in my corner.

If you plan to go for a trade deal, you can let the publisher's legal staff address any potential legal matters; that's what they're on retainer for.

If you're going to self-publish, you need to decide whether you can afford competent legal advice, which is virtually never inexpensive. If you can't, that's going to affect your decision whether you can afford to self-publish. Self-publishing is never free; you must decide whether you can afford to do it.

Cathy C · Jan 15, 2014

The first thing I did when I wrote my first book (historical fiction featuring real people) was find a good entertainment attorney. You can't use any old attorney for book advice. It's a specialized field. By hiring one right off the bat, they're there for things that might come up later (like looking over an agent's agreement!) I wouldn't trade my attorney for anything. He's been of immeasurable help over the years.

But, that said, there are attorneys who donate their time for authors and artists for a single question or project. Contact your state's Volunteer Lawyers For The Arts chapter to see if they can help.

Good luck.

King Neptune · Jan 15, 2014

You shouldn't worry until someone sues you, and most authors don't get sued. But if you can get a consultation for free from one of those that Cathy posted a link to, then you might feel better about it.

Torgo · Jan 15, 2014

King Neptune said:
You shouldn't worry until someone sues you, and most authors don't get sued. But if you can get a consultation for free from one of those that Cathy posted a link to, then you might feel better about it.

Seems risky. On the one hand, you have the modest returns you can expect on a self-published ebook memoir. On the other, a small possibility of a devastating blow in the wallet and the energy reserves from being sued.

There's a series of books in the UK - Hotel Babylon, Restaurant Babylon, Fashion Babylon etc - which are fictionalised, but essentially non-fiction exposes of the seamy underbelly of your favourite hotel/restaurant/etc. The restaurant one is the only one I've read, but it takes 24 hours in the life of a (fictional) restaurateur and his (fictional) staff and crams in every lurid tale and inside-baseball tip it can. It was great fun, enlightening, and - if you pay attention - clearly extremely closely read by lawyers acting for the publisher, because every reference to real people and places is the sort of thing that has been previously published somewhere else.

Terie · Jan 15, 2014

King Neptune said:
You shouldn't worry until someone sues you, and most authors don't get sued.

How on the goddess's green earth can you say this? You are incredibly blithe about advising someone not to worry about something that could potentially bankrupt them.

:Jaw:

CognitionX · Jan 16, 2014

Thank you for all of the comments, everyone! I appreciate the thoughts. Honestly, everything everyone has said has crossed my mind in the past, from just publishing the book and not worrying about what lawsuits might come up, to changing a lot more around and parading the book along that line of memoir and fiction.

But the most haunting tidbit is this: I pay for the legal advice, and then they tell me that I do, in fact, have problems with the work and need to make changes.

It is really a matter of how much effort I still want to put into the work, I think. It’s been something I’ve expelled from my mind so long ago, and am now revisiting it because of the e-publishing advent and my lack of desire to find traditional publishing methods. To pay a boat load of money for a lawyer, only to be told by a professional that I need to make changes, really haunts me, because I don’t even know if I have it in me to return to the work again and make changes.

It’s along the line of “Nickel & Dimed” and “The Santaland Diaries” for the topic and tone, and I know there’s a lot of books out there that walk the line of discussing a corporate/big-box environment, but all of those books were released by publishers who have lawyers on retainer.

I’m also afraid that changing the name of the corporation would change the impact of where everything is going on, because it’s not a story of revenge, but none the less one that deals with all of the weird stuff that can go on inside. So I’m looking at it from a marketing perspective as well as a creative one, because I’d want the work read. It’s not just about personal expression.

I guess I have some soul searching to do on the topic, but I just can’t afford a lawyer right now.

King Neptune · Jan 16, 2014

Torgo said:
Seems risky. On the one hand, you have the modest returns you can expect on a self-published ebook memoir. On the other, a small possibility of a devastating blow in the wallet and the energy reserves from being sued.

There is a small possibility that someone will be sued for something that happened thousands of miles away from that person, and that the person had nothing to do with, and it would cost a lot to get out of that, even with a decent lawyer. People can sue for anything, and it costs money to defend, even if there is nothing to what is claimed.

Authors are seldom sued, ad the damages usually are small, in those rare cases where the author is found to have libeled. If that is your biggest worry, then you are, or should be, a very happy person.

There's a series of books in the UK - Hotel Babylon, Restaurant Babylon, Fashion Babylon etc - which are fictionalised, but essentially non-fiction exposes of the seamy underbelly of your favourite hotel/restaurant/etc. The restaurant one is the only one I've read, but it takes 24 hours in the life of a (fictional) restaurateur and his (fictional) staff and crams in every lurid tale and inside-baseball tip it can. It was great fun, enlightening, and - if you pay attention - clearly extremely closely read by lawyers acting for the publisher, because every reference to real people and places is the sort of thing that has been previously published somewhere else.

I've seen worse restaurants, but I wouldn't bother sickening possible former diners by letting them know the facts.

Torgo · Jan 16, 2014

King Neptune said:
There is a small possibility that someone will be sued for something that happened thousands of miles away from that person, and that the person had nothing to do with, and it would cost a lot to get out of that, even with a decent lawyer. People can sue for anything, and it costs money to defend, even if there is nothing to what is claimed.

Yes, but look: let's say you used to work for Long John Silver's, and you want to write an amusing memoir about your time working for same. Any moderately amusing story you want to tell, is likely to be the sort of thing that Long John Silver's jolly boat o' lawyers - and I no way mean to imply that fine establishment any more litigious than the next whimsically-named corporate entity - would object to.

Authors are seldom sued, ad the damages usually are small, in those rare cases where the author is found to have libeled. If that is your biggest worry, then you are, or should be, a very happy person.

Uh-huh. Try publishing a quirky memoir about your time working at, say, Disneyland and get back to me. (For the avoidance of any doubt, I by no means intend to imply Disney is any more litigious than the next huge global entertainment corp.)

I've seen worse restaurants, but I wouldn't bother sickening possible former diners by letting them know the facts.

Oh, but it's very entertaining! And when you've read it you know which specials to avoid! A good, lucrative bit of publishing, really.

Old Hack · Jan 16, 2014

King Neptune said:
There is a small possibility that someone will be sued for something that happened thousands of miles away from that person, and that the person had nothing to do with, and it would cost a lot to get out of that, even with a decent lawyer. People can sue for anything, and it costs money to defend, even if there is nothing to what is claimed.

Authors are seldom sued, ad the damages usually are small, in those rare cases where the author is found to have libeled. If that is your biggest worry, then you are, or should be, a very happy person.

Even if damages are set at under a quid, that's not the only thing to worry about.

It costs tens of thousands of pounds--probably hundreds--to defend oneself against a libel suit. The bigger the opponent the bigger your bill is likely to be.

It's a really bad idea to assume it's not going to happen, and it's a really bad idea to assume that if it does happen the resulting financial burden is going to be minimal. It's an even worse idea to encourage other people to ignore the risks.

Old Hack · Jan 16, 2014

CognitionX said:
It’s been something I’ve expelled from my mind so long ago, and am now revisiting it because of the e-publishing advent and my lack of desire to find traditional publishing methods.

Why are you so reluctant to work with a trade publisher? (Note: trade publisher, not "traditional" publisher.) It seems to me that this sort of book demands the legal protection a trade publisher could give it.

It’s along the line of “Nickel & Dimed” and “The Santaland Diaries” for the topic and tone, and I know there’s a lot of books out there that walk the line of discussing a corporate/big-box environment, but all of those books were released by publishers who have lawyers on retainer.

I've been involved in a few legal cases over the years and have won all of them. I couldn't have done that had the books concerned not been published by one of those big publishers you refer to, who paid for the legal cover.

I guess I have some soul searching to do on the topic, but I just can’t afford a lawyer right now.

When compared to the potential bill you'll face for legal action and damages, an hour or two spent with a lawyer is cheap.

If you can't afford to spend that money, then do not publish this work. The risk is far too high.

CognitionX · Jan 17, 2014

Old Hack, when you say "trade publisher," you mean the corporate ones, right? Like Macmillan and Random House?

To be blunt, I wanted to avoid dealing with the agent and editor hunt -- I figured I could just do it myself, send the story out into the digital marketplace, and let it sink or swim there without having agents reject me. I have created a proposal for the book already, and the manuscript is done, so the materials are there.

I will say that I was going to go the e-publishing route because I thought it would be quick and simple, but when I got the work edited, had the cover made, the law issue came up and halted everything for months.

But maybe you're right after all -- maybe I will look into returning to a hunt for representation at a trade publisher. Either that, or find the money for my own legal counsel.

Finding Inexpensive Legal Counsel for Nonfiction E-Book

CognitionX

JournoWriter

Just the facts, please

Kerosene

Your Pixie Queen

Jamesaritchie

Treehouseman

ZachJPayne

Beware: #amQuerying

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Terie

Writer is as Writer does

Cathy C

Ooo! Shiny new cover!

King Neptune

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

Terie

Writer is as Writer does

CognitionX

King Neptune

Torgo

Formerly Phantom of Krankor.

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman

CognitionX