What are you afraid of the publisher doing with it? Many (most?) writers publish under pen names. Publishers deal with this every day, and I'm not aware of any situation where an author's real name and/or address has been leaked by a publisher.
unless you are in witness protection or something , just put your address in to amazon/D2D and stop being paranoid... they aren't going to share it with anyone (apart from the tax authorities who probably already have it if you pay tax on any other income)
@Sayold, finding a publisher is hard enough, as you will soon learn, finding one that meets your special requirements is out of the question.
Not least because from their point of view they are going to think "hang about this guy doesn't want to give his address ... whats he trying to hide ?"
You can hire a lawyer and they can probably act on your behalf and keep your identity secret. Maybe just make someone an agent with the power to act on your behalf. I’ve never tried it. Short of that, you’re going to run into the problems stated above, and possibly more. And even with the approach above someone might be able to find out who you are if they want to put enough work into it. It’s worth thinking about whether this is really necessary.
You can hire a team of lawyers, but they can't force the publisher to accept your work on your terms... the publisher can simply walk away and say 'sorry, try someone else.'
Yes, well, it isn’t uncommon for pseudonymous writers to use lawyers in this way, so I doubt the publisher will balk merely for that reason. That would at least minimize the information the publisher has, though not eliminate it (they’d still have an SSN for tax purposes, I’d think).
If your book is so controversial that it requires you to hide your identity, then a publisher won't touch it at all. If they are sued for what they published (your controversial book) they will want to be able to find you
Thing is the OP is talking about registering with amazon ... its not the same as acting through a lawyer for an actual trad deal. Amazon want your real address for tax reasons, and won't accept a PO pox or a c/o address because the IRS/HMRC won't Short of setting up a LLC with a company address and havng a lawyer act as the managing agent whilst you hold the majority of the shares through proxies hiding behind a bank, you still have to give your real adress. And even if you go to that massively over killed extent you still have to give your address to the lawyer.
I’ve set this up for someone through my law firm we used his real name in that case, and of course tax info. But the contact information, address etc came to the firm. I can see setting something like that up for a pseudonym, and I can even think of ways you could avoid providing tax info to Amazon though I’d have to research to see if it is allowable. But some comments above were about interacting with publishers and lawyers can and do interact with publishers on behalf of pseudonymous authors.
But presumably he'd still have to provide your firm with his real name and address for billing info...
Yes absolutely. But lawyers and law firms are bound by professional rules relating to client confidentiality and confidential information. It’s why I don’t need a confidentiality agreement with clients for patent or trade secret work. A lawyer who divulged that information would be putting their license at risk and possibly inviting a malpractice lawsuit.
Wheras if Amazon shared the information they'd be breaching the data protection act (or US equivalent) and opening themselves to lawsuit Which is why this is a solution without a problem ... Amazon aren't going to do anything nefarious with his address, and neither are the IRS, the only risk is 'what if they get hacked ?' and that applies to anyone you give the address to lawyers included As i said earlier if hes in the witness protection scheme, or on the run from the law or something its a legitimate concern, for everyone else its paranoia
I don’t agree. Amazon is going to have that tax info associated directly with the work and will be providing it to the state and local tax authorities. A law firm would provide a wall between those things. As I said, this is something that is actually done with pseudonymous authors, and it’s done because it is more effective. Nothing is absolutely foolproof but if for some reason you really want to maintain a separation between your identity and published works, I’d get with a lawyer and have them structure something that keeps the connecting information within the firm.
Yeah but so what ? Why is it a problem if the address is associated with the work and provided to the tax authorities ? Neither Amazon or the IRS are going to do anything odd with it (and if the work is controversial and succesful you can bet on your real identity coming out anyway ... as with EL James (real name Erika Leonard) . If its not , no one cares) Also Lawyers cost money ... I don't know what you charge, but I bet its not cheap. Is that really viable for someone wanting to self publish their novel via amazon who is probably going to make both halves of jack shit in year one ?
I think you’re arguing a different point—necessity. I’m assuming, as stated above, the author doesn’t want the publisher to know their identity and wants it to be harder to find out, for whatever reason. In that case, I’d go through a law firm. My rate is $350 per hour. The tax attorney I use is $425 per hour. At my firm it would probably cost $2000 to $3000 to set the whole thing up, and then there would be ongoing fees to manage it. If you’re arguing necessity, that would have to be discussed with the individual author. If you’re arguing that a law firm couldn’t make it harder for the identity to be discovered, I disagree.
I should add—clients are odd sometimes. One guy I had who I did a lot of book publishing work for was a guy I told I didn’t think it was necessary. I even put it in a letter and had him sign an acknowledgment. His response was he didn’t care, he wanted it done the way he wanted it done and didn’t care what it cost. OK. We did it.
I'm not arguing that - I said the same thing earlier (although my suggestion was masking the identity with a company set up through a lawyer) Thing is though that the OP hasn't said why he wants to mask his identity - in my opinion if hes got a legitimate concern (like witness protection or similar) then not publishing the thing at all looks like the better option. If he hasn't stop being paranoid and just publish it would be my advice. You can publish with a pen name through Amazon/Smashwords/D2D/Kobo etc and they aren't going to reveal your real identity or address to anyone apart from the tax office. I could see spending 2-3k to mask a name on a megabuck book deal, but for a self publisher that's not a sensible business decision.
It doesn’t make sense to me either, and as far as I know the cases where it is done are those where a lot of money is involved. But sometimes clients just want what they want. If I think it is unnecessary I’ll try to talk them out of it. If I think it is a bad idea, then I won’t do it. I’ve talked potential clients out of hiring the firm in situations I thought they’d just be throwing money away.
Sorry for the late reply, I think im just going to start by figuring out a pen name and we'll see from there..
Just to add to this since the earlier discussion I've discovered that foreign authors can register their copyright in america if they are selling into the american market - which most are via amazon etc (so long at their country has a copyright treaty with america .... that's most of the first world, bar some ex eastern block states) That seems like a sensible way to register copyright from the UK - considerably better than posting envelopes to yourself. (one note here is that when registering copyright you have to provide your name and address unless you go through a lawyer or a company etc )
thanks for the responses i think that to begin wtih im just going to publish my books for free. i can always change my mind if it turns out that they are good enough for selling
This is the point where I scream and bang my head on the table … if its not good enough for selling its not good enough to publish .. that kind of thing is what gets self publishing a bad name. There's nothing wrong with putting a book or two out free to establish your name and build a mailing list … I have one perma free and one free on list sign up .. plus two for sale... but your free book needs to be every bit as polished with good editing, good cover, good blurb and everything else as your for sale books
There's a huge market for snake oil . Self-publishing is just as much about the author as it is for the reader. The author sees their book out there, next to all the greats. And it feels wonderful . You may even get some money out of it. Even if that doesn't cover all the costs or provide you with a living, it still feels wonderful . It's very empowering and people need that, too, in their life. A little bit of happiness .
