Also so if he'd incorporated and self published who'd have been paying his legal fees then.... he would !
Do people really think self-publishing under a 'company name' fools people that the book isn't self-published? Bless.
Occasionally I come across An Author who states "I've been published by XYZ publishers". So I Google XYZ publishers, to find that all its books were written by An Author...which tells me that it's self-published, and he's bigging up what a good writer he is...which usually leads on to something riddled with SPaG.
According to joe because no one would buy your books if they are obviously self published.... clearly its better to pretend to be a publisher but put crappy templated covers on all your work , because that doesn't look amateur at all....
========== Or he could default and they then collect nothing from his company with no assetts. If he did not make a company then he would be on the hook for the costs.
Except that a) if he didn't keep assets in his company to cover its liabilities he'd be in breach and liable as a director , and b) he'd be personally liable as an author regardless so incorporating would have cost him money and achieved nothing .... he could of course declare himself bankrupt to avoid damages (whether he was incorporated or not) but that isnt something to do lightly given the impacts on your credit rating and assets
You'll still be on the hook for costs if someone sues over your book, because they'll sue you as well as your company. Do you have any reputable source suggesting incorporation as a way to avoid personal liability for authors?
I suspect he's confused between directors avoiding personal responsibility for the actions of their LLC, and them avoiding liability for their own actions in roles other than director.
=========== The author would need to buy insurance. Most self publishers dont go to that extra expense. While most are safe and wrote innocuous crappy fiction nobody reads , many authors do write things that get other people angry and end up getting sued.
======== I guarantee that I am not confused at all. You all keep assuming things that I did not say in your futile effort to prove I am wrong because you want that to be so. You need to learn ALL about how things can be done and not assume the only way you can conceive of is the only way that they can be done.
======== There are ways to establish the company and then remove yourself from it. You need to see a real lawyer instead of practicing law badly yourself. The author is a different issue. You buy insurance if you write anything that could in anyway get you sued.
So as you now accept you can be sued as an author why bother incorporating a company - just buy insurance (although in actual fact most authors don't insure themselves against libel)
So whats the answer to the question Bay view asked then ?... give us a credible source that says that its worth an author incorporating a company to avoid liability when self publishing. The basic problem here is that you don't have the experience or credibility to state things as 'fact' so give us something to back up your view .... or alternately stop giving incredibly poor advice as though you are an authority when you aren't.
I don't 100% agree with anyone participating in this particular discussion; I feel like I'm watching an episode of "Shark Tank" - one of the uglier ones, basically, just people spewing business advice around without being businessmen themselves. However, I have been founding and running companies for over ten years now. My resume and LinkedIn profile both testify that I have been very, very, very active in everything from developing video game studios to running a company that designed and sold t-shirts. So, I want to just make this clear... ...There is no useful or purposeful reason to actually form a company; that is just plain stupid. Even acting as an LLC you would have to keep track of your profit and loss, file for taxes (and for an LLC it is ten times more complicated than filing for yourself), and you are liable to be taxed. You also have to account for a lot of variables that just don't make sense if you are merely trying to sell books. However, when I was selling under Ryan W. McClellan, I was at zilch as far as sales went. Then three years later I created a web page and started to, instead, deliver all of my press releases and marketing practices under the name "Circle 5 Publishing Group." Is it a company? Not legally, but that is the paradox of U.S. Business Law: you can own a company without legally filing as one. I have since sold 22,000 additional copies, which is a 10x increase from when I was stating "Self-Published", and all I had to do was re-brand my novels. It's a marketing technique used when a company is associated with something negative, or is not making sales: rename it, change the logo and color scheme, and try again." That is textbook marketing. Much like how you can copyright a novel but cannot copyright the ideas found inside of it, if you want to look less pathetic as a self-published author (I'm not trying to offend here, as I am one myself), having a catchy name and a website with all of your books on there and an author bio, etc. is going to catch the attention of most people. This is because we associate more value from a catchy business name than we do from a "human" name. In other words, it looks good to have a bit of delusional grandeur and simply pretend you are operating under a publisher (even one that is not legally operating). Do not look at it as anything other than a marketing tip - from me to you. And in the end, the sales figures don't lie in my case. Anyway, there's my two cents.
========== You are so silly. It was worth it to me in the USA. You can decide if it is worth it to you wherever you are. I am sticking by my advice to do it.
============== That is your opinion. Many lawyers and accountants will tell you why you need to have a company. If your efforts are too small then maybe it is not worth it to you. But it is still solid advice to most people who are serious about their business efforts.
===== I plan to publish other works not just my own. But I would still do it anyway. Because to me it is worth it. Having a real company and your own ISBN helps avoid the stigma of vanity publishing which will kill sales of books and prevent legitimate reviewers from even looking at your book. If it does not help you then feel free to be a sole proprietor.
same thing in the UK - you can use a company name as a sole trader if you want I'm confused you said earlier you'd not filed taxes for three years - how does that work on 22k sales ? - also that aside did you change anything else - cover art, positioning, distribution etc or are the sales only attributable to this single change ? as an aside - while I am not yet a published writer I've been running self employed business of and on for over 20 years ... mainly in wedding/function photography and countryside consultancy (different businesses obviously) - bay view is a published author with numerous books both trad and self.
Much like Moose, I'm curious about how that works. Is there some kind of loophole in Florida that means you don't pay tax on those earnings? Usually you'd have to declare the income whether it came through a company or not. Eh, that's not really true. There's a lot of value in branding, but if the changes you made did actually have an effect and it wasn't just lucky timing, I imagine it's more likely to be the collation of all your material onto a website and giving yourself a presence to call your own that had more effect. I find it hard to see people being swayed by 'Circle 5 Publishing' on a page when the URL is still rwmclellan.com. As a counter-example, I believe @RikWriter has done similar numbers to the ones you were talking about, and I don't believe he attempts to hide the fact he's a self-published author at all.
Those are some great numbers for a self-publisher - where are you selling all those copies? Besides the re-branding, what did you do to get attention to your work? Was it for fiction or non-fiction? And what's the deal with your website? I've tried to load the one in your sig and it doesn't come up, and when I googled Circle 5 Publishing I got nothing... do you have a shopfront site somewhere under a different name? ETA: Nevermind - it loaded this time! If you're selling 22K copies of a novel as a self-publisher, I'd like to see what you're doing and how you're succeeding, but I don't seem to be able to find anything...
the link in his signature works for me... although I had to paste it into the search bar not to be harsh but that doesn't look anything like a publishing group website to me - also as an aside its Barnes and Noble without the second 's' and the 'raving reviews' link takes us to an amazon page with a single review from 2008 - was there a reason that the rest of the sales didn't generate any reviews ? Also was there a reason why you didn't use the Url Circle5publishing.com or similar ?
=========== I see it listed on amazon as a createspace book but zero sales as per the lack of a sales rank. First sales bumps you up into the low millions. No number no sales on amazon. One review which could be family friends or even the author. I find a circle 5 publishing by an Adam Aparicio in North Hollywood. Alleged revenue of 56K.
A word of warning: There are laws in place (in the UK, at least) against holding yourself out as being more than what you are by using an impressive company name. Shadowfax and son = fine (I gotta son, OK? Even though he goes by another surname!) Shadowfax company = fine Shadowfax inc. = (probably) fine (it's UK, so the "inc." is meaningless.) Shadowfax UK = getting dodgy (because I don't really cover more than my county. And the implication is that there's another Shadowfax USA that's somehow connected) Shadowfax Group = quite suspect (There's only one company in my group, so it's a misleading use of that word) Shadowfax International = illegal. Actually, all of these are probably illegal, because I'd be infringing on the group Shadowfax, whose album I've pirated for my avatar (I hope they'll accept that I'm not profiting from it, and that the publicity I'm giving them outweighs any harm I'm doing to their reputation! That, and the fact that they disbanded in 1995.)
I suspect avatars come under fair use/fair dealing anyway Incidentally (in the uk) you can use the same name as another company so long as you are not "passing off " that is using the brand association to bring you business/publicity (trademarks are a whole other thing)
