What are my individual rights as coauthor of a book?
I am the coauther of a book. There are four other authors. The book will be published and released soon. We have a clear royalties agreement, but we don't have an agreement about our individual rights beyond royalties.
I want to market and sell my coaching, speaking, and workshop services using the book independently. I don't want to have to ask permission from the other authors, nor do I want to be financially bound or accountable to them for work I do independently.
How can I do this legally?
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Generally speaking, when it comes to copyright law, the law says that if you guys have an agreement to split the proceeds of the sale of the book, then the law doesn't stretch that into other kinds of income that you receive.
What I mean by this is that if you do speaking engagements, if you give interviews that are paid, if you write articles related to the book, or you engage in any other activities that might drive sales of the book but are paid separately from the actual book sales, then you're entitled to that money. As such, if you do coaching or speaking engagements, or even start some sort of consulting business on the side that is separate from that income, the law lets you keep 100%.
Does that help clarify things? I want to make sure I didn’t leave anything out.
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I am the coauther of a book. There are four other authors. The book will be published and released soon. We have a clear royalties agreement, but we don't have an agreement about our individual rights beyond royalties.
I want to market and sell my coaching, speaking, and workshop services using the book independently. I don't want to have to ask permission from the other authors, nor do I want to be financially bound or accountable to them for work I do independently.
How can I do this legally?
Lexi, Chatbot
I understand your concern about wanting to market your coaching and speaking services independently. Have you discussed this specific issue with the other authors before?
No, I am concerned about making an unintended verbal agreement.
Lexi, Chatbot
Are there any clauses in your current agreement that touch upon individual rights beyond royalties or address marketing and selling services independently?
No, the group of authors in the contract is referred to as "author".
Lexi, Chatbot
Is there anything else the lawyer should know before I connect you? Rest assured they'll be able to help with your individual rights.
Yes
Michael M. Esq.
Hello! My name is Michael, and I'm an attorney ready to help! Your responses matter to me, so I only need a few minutes to review and respond to each of your posts. Are your co-authors doing the same thing?
I haven't spoken with them yet.
Michael M. Esq.
Okay, thanks! See, you guys don't have any kind of agreement about any money that you get from things like speaking or workshops. Correct? You only have an agreement about the sales from the book?
Correct
Michael M. Esq.
Understood! So you're just wondering what your rights are here, correct?
Yes, to start
Michael M. Esq.
Ok! Did you need to tell me anything else? If not, I can start with answering your question.
I have some ideas about how to leverage the published book such as workshops, building an online community, etc. The process of writing the book has been arduous and I regret giving away so much of my agency. Now I want to be autonomous and don't want to have to answer to the other authors. I recognize I may need to secure an agreement from them all that releases me from financial binds beyond our royalty agreement
Michael M. Esq.
Ok! I've been working on an answer while we've been chatting, so it'll just be a moment.
Ok
Michael M. Esq.
Generally speaking, when it comes to copyright law, the law says that if you guys have an agreement to split the proceeds of the sale of the book, then the law doesn't stretch that into other kinds of income that you receive.
What I mean by this is that if you do speaking engagements, if you give interviews that are paid, if you write articles related to the book, or you engage in any other activities that might drive sales of the book but are paid separately from the actual book sales, then you're entitled to that money. As such, if you do coaching or speaking engagements, or even start some sort of consulting business on the side that is separate from that income, the law lets you keep 100%.
Does that help clarify things? I want to make sure I didn’t leave anything out.
Yes, that does help clarify things. But let me give you a scenario I'm concerned about.
The book we wrote has several exercises in it that are used by those who want to practice using a method we are all trained in (Internal Family Systems). I want to do workshops where I use exercises from the book. I may include handouts that include portions of the book such as the individual exercises. Am I still free of constraint or concern?
Michael M. Esq.
For sure! You would be more than able to go ahead and still do that. The exercises themselves aren't specifically trademarked or otherwise protected. If you wanted to charge for doing those exercises with people, you certainly could. You don't have to share the money.
I'd like to keep this conversation to refer to later. How can I save it?
Michael M. Esq.
No problem. To get a copy of the transcript, you can copy and paste it into a Word document. You can also save the URL (the website link that your browser is on right now) and come back to the question at a later time.
Thank you Michael.
Michael M. Esq.
Sure thing!
Michael M. Esq.
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