Referencing Brand Names in Your Book

Welcome to another #WriterWarnings! Today, we’re going to cover whether you should include pop-culture references, brand names, titles, or song lyrics within your book. This can also be referred to as permissions and fair use. This is because if you intend to directly quote someone or a work, you might need to get permission from the work's creator or owner. certain things can fall into copyright infringement, and you don't want that to happen to your book. There's a reason publishers don't commonly let authors use brand names or direct quotes/lyrics within their work. Now, as of 2022, anything considered public domain was published in 1927 or before.

Sometimes, references of certain brand names need to be removed. It's best to avoid including brand/company names altogether, especially if you're self-publishing. Now, if you're going the traditional publishing route, a lawyer might have to read through your manuscript before moving forward. This is the case if you have such references to companies or brands or even song lyrics.

If you don't follow permissions and fair use guidelines, there's nothing stopping you from being sued.

You do NOT need permission to reference movie titles, song titles, book titles, etc. Basically, anything involving nothing more than a title.

You might want to mention "Iron Man" or "Captain America" rather than "Disney" or "Marvel." rather than delving any deeper with that, merely mention the title and move in rather than continue with some sort of debate.

TV shows do this sort of thing all the time. For example, iCarly had phones shaped like a pear as a way to reference apple products. you can do this within your story, too!

Now, if you do want to contact someone about receiving permission, it's not going to be cheap. There are example letters on how to email someone about gaining permission, but it will take time as well.

Here is a link for more in-depth information:    https://www.janefriedman.com/sample-permission-letter/

Xo,

Ashley