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Commonsensical Maverick
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I'm a published author of nonfiction books for children and adults. I'm creating a website and need some advice about posting some information on same.

1. Under "My Other Works" I intend to show the covers and list the names of those books of mine which I have either written, co-authored, or edited. Do I need written permission from each publisher, and/or written permission from any co-author or author where I edited said book?

2. I intend to feature up one particular book I co-authored and about which hundreds of reviews were written in magazines and newspapers in the 1970's.
My idea is to reprint excerpts of the reviews from 10 to 20 of these magazines and newspapers. My question: do I need written permission from the magazine or newspaper and/or the reviewer who wrote each article?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.
 

gettingby

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You don't need your publisher's permission to list the books you have written and show the covers. If anything, they should all be happy since you are promoting your books and it could result in more people buying your books. As for reprinting excerpts, that too should be fine. You do however need to credit the magazine or newspaper. I hope this helps.
 

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Commonsensical Maverick
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gettingby,

Thanks for the advice. It certainly sounds logical. I hope others will chime in with their experiences. I have a pretty good idea of what's right and wrong when it comes to a manuscript, but I am a uneasy when it comes to a website - I never had one before.
 

popmuze

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The thing I find about the Internet is that rules and regulations are kind of hazy. I am building a web site myself right now, in which I plan to show pictures of my previous book jackets, etc.
On an older web site of mine I had a link you could click to get some reviews, which I scanned in. Nobody complained.
On the other hand, I have a poster from a magazine I edited in the 1980s, which features thumbnails of all 100 covers of the magazine in its history thus far (all of which I edited). Some people have said I might run into trouble putting this up on my web site, although I don't know why.
 

Unimportant

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Presumably the books are available through Amazon? If so, AFAIK anyone can use the Amazon book cover jpgs and links; I think you can even get a percentage of sales if people click from your website to the Amazon buy site.

Excerpts from reviews -- it's a bit hazy for promotional non-fiction, but as long as they're brief and attributed they should fall under fair use.
 

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Commonsensical Maverick
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Unimportant,

Wonderful idea. Yes, all my books are on Amazon. I will look into it.

Thanks.