Business Building

Estate Planning for Creatives

Protect your creative legacy with thoughtful estate planning. Wills, trusts, LLCs, and how to appoint a literary or artistic executor are important considerations for managing your creative work and copyrights after death.

Legally Binding Online Contracts

You’ve been signing them for years without a thought. Now that you’re starting to sell your work online, do you know what makes a legally binding online contract?

NFTs and Publishing Contracts

Have authors given up their rights to create NFTs from their books in publishing contracts that were signed before NFTs even existed?

Contract Terms: A Glossary for Creatives

Cut through the legalese in your contracts with this easy to understand glossary.

How to Hire an Audiobook Narrator

Audiobooks build revenue. Hiring an audiobook narrator means signing a contract to secure your rights. All contracts have a similar structure, but deal terms are different.

Start a Business: Who, What, Where, When, How, and Why

You start a business by making a sale of your finished work or your services. Then you set up your organization. Here’s when, why, and how you do that.

Copyright for Artists in Business: the USPS gets Schooled, Again

Which comes first, the art or the business? Many artists work to turn their creative abilities into a business. But sometimes it’s the business that turns out to be creative. In either case, copyright protects the business by protecting the art.

Who Owns Copyright? My Company or Me?

As the author of a creative work, you are the one who owns copyright to it unless you are an employee or the work is for hire. If you own the company, you can choose whether to own the rights or assign them to the company. Here’s how to make that decision.

Creative Entrepreneur: Running a [Jailhouse] Business

It takes a certain kind of person to be a creative entrepreneur. A successful business is made up of more than just a good idea. Good ideas are key, but they are also a dime a dozen. Solid execution is needed to bring that idea to fruition, to turn that idea into a going concern, to have that idea make money.

Model Releases: Who Needs Them and When are They Needed?

When do you need a model release from the person whose image you are using in your work? Should you ask permission or forgiveness?