Self-Publishing? The Five Rights Questions to Answer Before You Hit Publish

The writing is the hard part — but the rights are the dangerous part. Before publishing any e-book, yours or assembled from licensed material, answer five questions in writing.

1. Do I own or control every word?

Your own prose, yes. Quotations beyond brief attributed excerpts, song lyrics (famously enforced), long passages from other works — each needs permission or a solid public-domain basis. 'Fair use' is a defense argued in court, not a license you can rely on in advance.

2. Do I control every image?

Covers sink more independent books than texts do. A photo found in search results is someone's property. Use your own work, properly licensed stock (keep the receipt), or verified public-domain art — and note that a museum's photograph of an old painting can carry its own claims in some jurisdictions.

3. Are real people described safely?

Memoir and nonfiction can defame; even fiction can if a character is recognizably a real person portrayed damagingly. The test is not your intent but what a reader could identify.

4. Is the title and branding clear?

Titles are not copyrightable, but series names and logos can be trademarks. A two-minute trademark search before you commit to branding is the cheapest insurance in publishing.

5. Can I prove all of the above?

Keep a rights file per book: licenses, permissions, sources, dates. Distributors and stores increasingly ask; when they do, the publishers with paperwork keep selling and the rest get delisted.

Answer all five and publishing becomes what it should be: a craft, not a gamble.