Jacqui Lipton is a law professor and the director of Authography LLC, a company dedicated to helping authors and artists with legal and business issues. She writes fiction and law books, and holds an MFA in fiction writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts as well as a Ph.D. in law from Cambridge University. She loves reading and writing speculative fiction and is the mother of three children and (apparently) three cats. She is the author of “Law and Authors: A Legal Handbook For Writers” (University of California Press, 2020).
Blog Posts
- On The Books: Writing About Real People
- Copyright versus Plagiarism
- Assigning and Licensing Your Copyrights
- Securing Your Author Domain Name
- Writing About Historical Figures
- Contracts with Agents and Publishers
- Author Interview: Maggie Shen King (“An Excess Male”)
- So you want to make a book trailer …?
- Trademarks and Book Titles
- Literary Agents and Financial Mismanagement: What Can an Author Do?
- Changing Agents . . . and those Pesky Ongoing Commissions
- To PR or Not to PR?
- Working with Illustrators and Artists
- How Much Will It Cost Me to . . .
- More on Morality Clauses
- Fiction Can Defame…
- Changing Agents: The Do’s and Don’ts
- When to © …
- Prequels, Sequels, and Retellings
- Multiple, Simultaneous, and Exclusive Submissions
- Are Options Optional?
- What Copyright Isn’t: Protection Ideas versus Expression
- Copyright Law and Copying by Hand
- Know Your Rights (and Royalties)
- The Audible Captions Litigation
- Option and Non-Compete Clauses
- Retaining Rights in Publishing Contracts
- When to Pay for Copyright Permissions
- An Intellectual Property Primer for Authors
- Copyright in the Time of Covid-19
- On the Books: Can I Use Someone Else’s Trademark in my Manuscript?
- The “Copying” in Copyright Law
- Writing in Partnership With Others
- Publishing Agreements: Whose Contract is it Anyway?
- Agent versus Attorney: Who Can Help Me with my Publishing Contract?
- Your Agent is a Fiduciary … So What?
- What Can (and Can’t) I Do With That Self-Published Book?
- The Wonderful World of Work for Hire
- Advance vs Royalties
- Bad Agency Agreements vs Bad Agents
- Terminating an Agency Agreement
- Option Clauses: Pros and Cons
- Avoiding Infringing Someone Else’s Copyright
- If I Give Credit, It’s not Copyright Infringement, Right?
- Fair Use 101
- Publishing Contracts in the Real World
- Publishing Contracts: The Dreaded Option Clause
- What if My Publisher Cancels My Book?
- Trademarks and the Writing Life
- Agency Agreements: Single versus Multiple Project Contracts
- Monopsony and the Publishing Industry
- Marketing Your Books: What to Expect
- Permissions and Your Publisher