The Indie Author Companion

James: Copyright law: the one area where writers confidently say “I looked it up” and then get it completely wrong. DianneP is here to help with that.

Claire: This episode follows a single thread — what writers actually get wrong about fair use, and why the answers are almost never as simple as the questions. Let’s start with the myth that a magic number of words makes copying legal.

James: The question at the center of this post is one almost every writer has asked at some point — can you quote a song lyric, borrow a few lines, copy something brief, as long as you credit the source? The post argues the real answer is almost never a clean yes or no.

Claire: Part Two of the “Can I Do That?” series on the Current Words Publishing Substack sets up the stakes directly: “one of the biggest myths surrounding copyright: that there’s a magic number of words you can safely borrow.”

James: So the upshot is that the number itself is a fiction. Courts don’t count words — they weigh four factors, and “I only took a little” is not a defense on its own.

Claire: Right, and that four-factor analysis is the practical core of what the post walks through. The factors include things like the purpose of the use, the nature of the original work, how much was taken, and what effect that use has on the market for the original. None of them operate in isolation.

James: Which is the part that catches writers off guard. You can take three words and still have a problem. You can take a full paragraph and sometimes be fine. The test is contextual, not arithmetic.

Claire: The post also flags giving credit as another common misconception — attribution does not equal permission. Those are two separate questions, and conflating them is one of the more consequential mistakes a writer can make.

James: Knowing where fair use ends turns out to matter as much as knowing where it begins — which is exactly the kind of territory this series is built to map. The myth of the magic number is stubborn precisely because it’s so convenient.

Claire: It is. And the four-factor test exists because context matters more than counting. More on the territory ahead next time.

This episode is based on our post Do Authors Need a Website?“

James: Every author eventually asks the question — do I actually need a website, or can I just exist on social media and hope for the best?

Claire: This episode covers that exact question, thanks to Dianne writing for Current Words Publishing. We’re looking at why an author website matters, what goes on it, and how to make the practical decisions around it.

James: Let’s start with the case for owning your own corner of the internet.

Claire: The tension here is simple: social media exists, it’s free, and most authors are already on it. So why bother with a dedicated website at all?

James: The post answers that directly, and the framing is hard to argue with: “A book without a website is like a business without a front door.”

Claire: What that means in practice is that when someone hears about your book, they go looking immediately. They want to know who you are, whether you’ve written other things, and whether you’re worth their time and money. If there’s no website, there’s nowhere to land.

James: Social media sounds like a reasonable substitute until you remember that algorithms change, posts disappear, and accounts get buried. Borrowed space is borrowed space.

Claire: The post puts the cost at about sixty-eight dollars a year for a clean WordPress site — one the author actually owns, with no gatekeepers or middlemen involved.

James: Sixty-eight dollars a year to have a front door. That’s a pretty low bar for “this is real and I’m serious about it.”

Claire: And the post is clear that it doesn’t need to be complicated. Four things: a strong homepage, a page for the book, a short human About page, and a way to buy or learn more. That’s the whole list.

James: The post also walks through a real decision most authors face — whether to register their domain under their name or their book title. If you’re building a long-term platform across multiple books, your name is usually the better anchor. If it’s a standalone title with its own world and community, a book-specific domain can carry that.

Claire: And for authors working with Current Words, the build itself is included — no extra charge, with a Zoom walkthrough so the author feels confident running the site themselves afterward.

James: So the website question turns out to be less about technology and more about whether readers can find you when they go looking.

Claire: Which is really just the publishing question in a different form.

James: Own your space, know your domain, and make it easy for the reader who’s already interested to actually find you.

Claire: That’s the throughline. More on what comes next when we’re back.

James: Current Words Publishing — where the muffler analogy does a surprising amount of heavy lifting in the world of manuscript editing.

Claire: CWP lays out a detailed case for what authors should actually expect to pay for editing, how pricing structures can quietly work against writers, and where the real red flags hide. Let’s start with what fair editing costs look like — and how to know when a quote has crossed the line.

James: The uncomfortable question nearly every author eventually asks is whether they paid too much for their edit — and the industry’s lack of pricing transparency makes that question genuinely hard to answer.

Claire: The post frames the stakes plainly: “Fair manuscript editing costs are tied to things like scope, deliverables, and clarity, not prestige branding or open-ended pricing structures.”

James: That distinction matters because without a defined scope, authors have no way to evaluate whether a quote is reasonable — they’re just trusting that the number is fair.

Claire: On actual numbers: the post references the Editorial Freelancers Association rate chart as a benchmark. At Current Words, the standard rate is $0.03 per word, putting a 60,000-word manuscript at $1,800. When quotes reach five figures for editing alone, the post calls that a red flag — a sign that services have been bundled or pricing reflects brand positioning rather than editorial work.

James: Hourly billing is where the math gets especially slippery. If one editor covers five pages in an hour and another covers ten, the author pays double for the slower pass — with no guarantee of better results.

Claire: Right, and the post makes that comparison directly: per-word pricing defines scope and creates accountability, while hourly billing rewards time spent rather than outcomes delivered.

James: Then there’s what the post calls the “Big-Name Editor” myth — the idea that hiring someone with a famous client list changes how agents evaluate your manuscript. It doesn’t. Agents don’t ask who edited your book.

Claire: The post is direct on that point: editing pedigree will almost never replace clarity, craft, or focus. And on platform fees, the post flags a structural issue with large marketplaces — authors pay a service fee, editors pay a percentage back to the platform, and communication is often restricted to keep everything inside one ecosystem.

James: So the platform earns on both sides of the same transaction. The post calls it a double dip, and it’s a fair description.

Claire: For authors preparing to query, the post adds one specific piece of advice: do not pay for proofreading yet. An edit is sufficient at the querying stage, and that money is better saved.

James: The bar for a reasonable quote isn’t complicated — defined scope, flat pricing, no add-ons mid-project. Which is really just the muffler standard applied to manuscripts.Transparency in pricing, clarity of scope, and not paying for prestige you can’t use — those are the throughlines here.