Estate Planning Tips for Authors and Freelancers

Do your estate planning now to make it easy on your heirs later.

(The following is an edited excerpt from my post at The Writer’s Place.)

Have you thought about what your heirs or executors need to know about your writing business when you’re no longer around, when the fickle finger of Fate hits the delete key and you vanish into the vast unknown?

Here is a down-and-dirty To-Do list of what to know and do to make it easier for your executor and heirs. (Note: I’m no attorney and don’t know how laws may differ from state to state or country to country, so consult a legal professional after reading this.)

For the purposes of this article, I am assuming you’ve done the basics: prepared a will and have named an executor. That person is the one who will have to deal with all this, so make it easy on them!

If you’re an author

Let’s start with the subject of copyrights. According to Copyright.gov, “The ownership of a copyright may be transferred in whole or in part by any means of conveyance or by operation of law, and may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property by the applicable laws of intestate succession.”

Quite a mouthful, right? But what it means is that the copyright can pass to your spouse, your children, other family members or whomever you designate in your will. (No will? Then your state’s laws of intestacy decide it for you!)  

Who gets the money when you aren’t around to cash those royalty checks? It goes to your estate unless you have designated someone else as the recipient of that copyright. Ghostwriters & Company recommends furnishing a legal document to your publisher, listing who gets control of your book, including publishing rights, literary contracts, and royalties, after your death.

No family members? Consider a charity that can make use of the royalties.

It’s helpful to make a list of the following (some of which came from this article by Jane Marlow):

• Your book titles, publishers (with complete contact information), year of publication, ISBNs
• Your literary agents (past and present)
• Any pseudonyms you’ve used or are using
• Contact information for any PR or marketing person you are working with
• Location of registration documents for works registered with the Copyright Office
• Bank account information for royalties that come to you via direct deposit

If you’ve self-published your books, this article has a lot of very useful information. Since I use BookBaby for all my indie-published books, I reached out to them to learn the process and they explained how my executor can update the contact information and other details. It’s simple and straightforward, which will be much appreciated!

(For more about intellectual property rights after death, read this article.)

If you’re a freelance writer

Since I run a freelance writing business, I put together a list of my current clients with their contact information, so if I die before I retire, my executor can alert them that I can’t meet the deadline for their latest project.

What else? Make a contact list for service providers for your business: web host, email host, domain registrations, and software that is subject to renewal fees. Your executor needs to know who to contact to cancel or shut down the service, and the documentation that is required for that to take effect.

If you're on social media

Create a list of all the social platforms, including your usernames and passwords as well as the email associated with each account. That’s what your executor will need to close out the accounts and delete them, unless you are planning on doing some posting posthumously!

According to an article by Catherine Hodder, Esq., the Revised Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act provides that whomever has been named by you in your will as your personal representative can handle the closing of those accounts. (Yet another good reason to have a will.) But that person will still have to follow the protocols established by each social account.

Download this handy guide from ConsumerResources.org on closing down social media accounts after death. Another excellent resource is this article from Dignity, broken down by the different platforms.

Last tips

So you’ve spent some fun hours (days, weeks…) pulling all this together. But will your executor know where it is? Make a master list of where all your important papers are kept and give that to your executor now.

And if your computer, tablet and cell phone are password protected, write down what those passwords are. This can save a ton of time especially if your executor has to access documents that you’ve kept electronically.

Remember: When it comes to legal issues, it’s always best to consult an attorney to ensure that what you’ve put in place is applicable for the state in which you have legal residence.

Read this post for additional resources.

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