Copyright and Trademark Issues Simplified

Copyright and trademark law is bread and butter to the writer’s business. This is arguably the one area you need a lawyer in your corner.

If you want to see a lot of bad advice, ask about copyright on a writing discussion board. It seems that everyone has that little kernel of wisdom that they need to unload whenever the topic of copyright is brought up.

The problem is that if you are serious about running your writing as a business then you need to separate the wheat from the chaff, and you need to wade through a lot of chaff to find that wheat.

You should not have to do that.

Obviously, you need to take a couple of business and legal classes if you’re serious about this. Or read a couple of books about business and law. Or even listen to some podcasts on law and business. And you need to make sure that these books and podcasts are worth the read or listen; there’s a lot of wisdom to the adage “garbage in, garbage out” after all. You need that wisdom, but you also need to listen to the reviews, and I mean listen; a little bit of cynicism can keep you away from the worst of the worst advice.

Actually, let’s expand on that: It’s not just important to read reviews, but really read those reviews. If the review is a solid 5-star review that does nothing but gush about how awesome the book is, it’s probably a good idea to ignore that review; it was likely written by someone close to the writer. Conversely, a 1-star review that does nothing but slam the book is just as usless, and was likely written by someone with an ax to grind. In short, avoid reviews that are too extreme.

Also, ask yourself if the review has any relevance to the book; sure, binding is a reason for a negative review, but did the reviewer mention anything about the content of the book itself? Keep in mind that this applies to review bombings in both directions; some people will give a book a positive or negative review based on perceived moral issues rather than the value of the book itself. Others will make fun of the book based on the concept rather than what is actually presented. In short, try to determine if the review has been given due to issues that have nothing to do with the quality of the book itself.

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