Published on May 21, 2008
First I want to thank you for all the work you do helping us budding writers. Thank you for including me on your mailing list.
I have a question. My family has been after me to write a family cookbook with all their many favorite recipes. Through the years I have clipped recipes here and there. Some are my mother’s or grandmother’s. I have no idea where they originated from. Of course, I would write it mainly for family, but what if it became a New York Times best seller? (Just kidding.) But, friends or others might want to buy it. How could I ever trace down the original recipe for permission? Some of the recipes I have changed a little. (I thought I made it better.) I have bought cookbooks from local fundraisers and I can’t find disclaimers.
Could you help me?
Thank you so much!
Joan
We get this question quite a bit so I try to run a ditty on it at least once a year. 🙂
There is actually a special page on the Library of Congress website concerning the copyrighting of recipes. See:
https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html
Published on May 21, 2008
JM Writing & Editing / Jessica Mousseau – Writer claims she’s owed $141.00. Pretty bizarre situation. What do you think about this one?
Published on May 14, 2008
We got up at the crack of dawn, kissed Richard and Mason goodbye (that type of boating is not good for toddlers), and drove to the dock…
Published on May 14, 2008
We recently received an angry email from a woman who claimed her father’s book, which we published, constituted a violation of her privacy…
Published on May 14, 2008
I am a self-published author and owner of GungHo Pages, LLC, who recently signed on with Lightning Source POD services. I have been following the Amazon/BookSurge dilemma for a few months now, continually checking to see if my Buy Buttons are still intact. They are. So I am doing my best to keep myself up-to-date and carving out alternative avenues for distributing my books. I will stay with Amazon until they remove my Buy Button. But if and when they do, I will simply take my business elsewhere where it is more respected and appreciated…and perhaps post a few articles on the web about my not-so-positive experiences with the companies in question!
Signing out, ABCrane, author of The Tao of Mao: How Capitalist America and Communist China Paved the Way to Each Other
Published on May 14, 2008
So you’ve decided to write a travel guidebook! Perhaps you are a travel writer with a sheaf of articles about your trip to Australia and you feel you have a good enough angle to support a full book. Perhaps you’re a travel editor who is fed up with the books coming across your desk since you feel none of them have really brought the reality of the place home. Or you could be an outdoor editor who notices there are more and more inquiries about mountain biking in your area but there is no guidebook on the subject. Of course you may not be a writer at all…
Published on May 14, 2008
In my book, the protagonist will be a writer. I want to give this character some goofy stories to write about in the book. My questions is, if any of these “stories” are based on, say, urban legend or goofy news reports I’ve read, is using those stories for ideas considered plagiarism? I would of course NOT copy and paste anything or write anything verbatim, just get the idea from an existing urban legend or goofy news piece I may have read.
Published on May 7, 2008
This issue is a bit abbreviated because I took off a long weekend while Richard’s dad and step-mom were here and… now I’m paying the price. I am SO BEHIND! UG!!
Anyway, here’s what I did in the past week…
Published on May 7, 2008
Letters will return next week.
Published on May 7, 2008
Even though the calendar says its spring, I’m sitting here at my keyboard next to a window watching the snow come down
