Episode 126 - Estate Planning for Authors with Michael La Ronn
March 29, 2022
Michael La Ronn discusses ESTATE PLANNING FOR AUTHORS. He talks about making it easy for your heirs ... planning and managing your estate ... sharing passwords securely ... protecting against scammers ... and the first step to take.
Michael La Ronn is the author of over forty science fiction & fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He also runs the popular YouTube channel Author Level Up, where he publishes weekly advice videos for writers. Michael also serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a US Ambassador, and he co-hosts the AskAlli Member Q&A Podcast where he answers new writers’ most burning questions about self-publishing.
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"My grandfather passed away like a gangster. He had everything organized. He had all the bank account information taken care of. He left an estate that was so easy to manage, it almost managed itself." —Michael La Ronn
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[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Michael La Ronn. Hey, Michael, how are you doing?
[00:00:05] Michael: Hey, Matty. Great to be back.
[00:00:07] Matty: I am happy to have you back. I'll be getting to a list of your previous episodes in a moment. You're getting right up there; I think you're a five-timer now.
[00:00:14] Michael: All right, that's good.
[00:00:15] Matty: So to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Michael La Ronn is the author of over 40 science fiction and fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He also runs the popular YouTube channel Author Level Up, where he publishes weekly advice videos for writers. Michael also serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a US ambassador, and he co-hosts the Ask ALLi Member Q&A podcast, where he answers new writers' most burning questions about self-publishing.
[00:00:40] And the previous episodes of the podcast that Michael has been on of The Indy Author Podcast are episode 96, EMERGING TECH FOR THE WRITING CRAFT, 90 was BRINGING A CREATIVE ENDEAVOR TO AN END, 55 was THE COSTS OF SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK and 82 was, you were one of the all-star cast of PERSPECTIVES ON WRITER'S BLOCK. So if you're curious to see any of Michael's previous appearances on the podcast, just go to TheIndyAuthor.Com/podcast and search on his name.
[00:01:06] And Michael is back today to talk about estate planning for authors.
[00:01:11] So normally, I think that we would say, our disclaimers are, we are not actually lawyers, and so take all this advice with a grain of salt, but that's not really the case. Do you want to describe a little bit about the background that led you to writing this book?
[00:01:24] Michael: Yeah, the disclaimers still apply. I did go to law school. I have abbreviated legal background, so I'm not a lawyer. I don't pretend to be one. I don't hold myself out as one, but I thought that having a little bit of a legal background could help in writing a look like this. So by no means should you take anything that we're about to discuss as legal advice, but I tried to write something that would benefit everyone and be a really good starting point for figuring out what to talk to a lawyer about.
[00:01:50] Matty: Okay.
[00:01:50] Michael: So this book is a good handbook to help you do that.
[00:01:54] Matty: And it's almost better, I think sometimes when it's not written by someone who's deeply immersed career-wise in law, because I think that you're better at spinning it out in terminology that's going to be accessible and understandable to indy authors.
[00:02:07] Michael: Yeah, God bless the legal profession, but sometimes they can get really deep into concepts. So it helps to have somebody who understands you when you're reading a book like this.
[00:02:16] Yep, so what were some of the things that you saw happening in the indy author community that made you think that this kind of book was going to be a useful resource to people?
Making It Easy for Your Heirs
[00:02:25] I've been talking about this for the last few years. I think that when more authors start dying and, forgive me for using the word dying so freely, but when more author authors start dying, passing away, I think that we're going to have a problem because there aren't very many resources on how to manage an author estate.
[00:02:46] And you combine that with the fact that, you are probably the only person who is doing your author business. Meaning, it is solely up to you. You might have a spouse, you might have a child that understands on a superficial level what you're doing, but when you pass away and all of a sudden, it's now up to them to manage your books, to keep the money coming in so that they can benefit from it.
[00:03:11] I think the initial reaction is, oh my God, I don't know what to do. And I think the author also has a reaction of, oh my God, I don't know how to prepare for this. So you combine those two statements together, and I think you have a recipe for a train wreck. And I think not enough prominent self-published authors have passed away yet for this to really be a problem.
[00:03:32] And so I've been talking about it for the last few years, just off and on, but over the past year, my grandfather passed away. He passed away of old age at the age of 93 and it was a sad time, but I don't know the best way, sometimes I'm not good with my words, but my grandfather passed away like a gangster.
[00:03:49] Like he had everything organized, like he had a will that was very neatly organized, distributed his property, distributed his assets to everyone. He had all the bank account information taken care of. He left an estate that was so easy to manage, it almost managed itself. And I thought, wow, that is, of all the things that my grandfather taught me, I think that was one of the most profound things because in order to do that, it takes a lot of organization and that comes from a place of true love.
[00:04:21] And I thought to myself, okay, how can I pass away the same way that my grandfather passed away, given the fact that, okay, my grandfather never owned a computer, he never was on the internet, he grew up during The Great Depression, so completely different generation. But what would that look like with a millennial or someone who is actively engaged in the digital world today? And that's what started me on this journey.
[00:04:44] Matty: So I wanted to talk very generally. You talk about the three stages of estate management. And I want to talk about that generally to give us context, but I was very interested, the book breaks out some specific topics that I don't think I've seen addressed much if at all in other resources. So let's start first with the context setting, the three stages of estate management. What are those?
Estate Management: Planning
[00:05:08] Michael: Yeah, the first stage, I think it's always helpful to think about things in steps, because it makes it that much easier to consume. So the first stage is planning your estate. So this is when you really look at what you have and you figure out what are my goals, what do I want to do?
[00:05:25] So going and talking to an attorney to figure out what should be in your will.
[00:05:30] Now, as an author, most people can go and get a will done relatively easy, but it's the author part where people kind of mess up, all right? So figuring that out, figuring out what your goals are, getting your advanced medical directives together, figuring out if you want a trust. All of these things that you need in a qualified estate attorney, an accountant and a financial advisor. That is the first stage. That's where you figure out what you have, you figure out what you want, and then you engage with people to help you figure out how to get there. That's the first stage, not terribly complicated.
[00:06:06] The second stage is where things start falling apart and that is organizing your estate. So that's when you figured out, okay, what do I want? And you've engaged people. Now, you've got to start articulating what you want. And when you meet with your estate attorneys and your copyright attorneys, you have to be able to articulate what it is that you want so that they can craft everything for you.
[00:06:27] But the more important part about all of this is, organizing all of these pieces. It's kind of like a giant puzzle. It's organizing all of these pieces so that you don't leave a mess when you pass away. So organizing things like your passwords. So if you have a password to your computer, gosh, I hope you've written that down somewhere for your heirs to get into, because otherwise they don't have access to your devices.
[00:06:52] Securing your phone, you would ask why would you need to secure your phone? Well, because of things like two-factor authentication, which more often than not goes to your phone. And so, even if your heirs have your username and password, they won't be able to get into your accounts if they can't get that one-time password that gets texted out. Things like figuring out what to do with your bank accounts, figuring out what to do with your email accounts. Leaving a document trail for your heirs to figure out just how the heck you run things. I think this is the biggest and most complex and vast part of running the estate.
[00:07:27] And this is not necessarily a phase that an attorney can help you with. The attorneys can help you with the wills. They can help you with the trust. They can help you with the legal questions, but as far as getting organized, not so much. And so that's really up to you to figure out a logical, simple way that you can help your heirs.
3rd Stage of Estate Management: Managing
[00:07:45] And then the final stage is managing the estate. This is when you have passed away and the estate is opened up and whoever you've designated, whether it be a spouse or a friend or a relative, that's when they start actively managing your estate, to keep the money for the books coming in to keep your accounts active, any other issues that may come up, as well as refreshing your titles from time to time. Maybe you've got a book that's really old, it needs a new cover, needs a new rebrand, or maybe there's a Netflix special that hits 10 years after your death, and the genre that you wrote in today, isn't very popular, but after your death, it skyrockets. Your estate can help with that and help with the rebranding and keeping your titles relevant so that you're constantly getting introduced to new generations of readers. So those are the three phases.
[00:08:32] Matty: Okay, I already have a question, which is about that last part. So some of these things that you're recommending and we're going to be talking about are sort of mechanical, you know, you make your passwords available to somebody, and I'll have questions about that too. But then when you start talking about maybe a cover needs rebranding. Now we're talking about a whole different level of understanding of the business, as opposed to someone sitting back and feeling confident that their royalties are going to where they want them to be. Do you have advice in terms of how you prepare your heirs for the business side of taking on this work?
[00:09:08] Michael: Yes, and I probably should mention the name of this book, because we've been talking about it. It's called THE AUTHOR ESTATE HANDBOOK, and it's how to organize your affairs and leave a legacy.
[00:09:18] Now to your question of how do you start preparing this information for your heirs? I actually have another book that's coming out in the next couple weeks. It's called THE AUTHOR HEIR HANDBOOK. And the book is written in plain English for someone who is inheriting an author estate. The key thing to remember is that you are inheriting a small business, if you're an heir. So the author, whether they thought about what they were doing as a business or not, you're inheriting a business. And a business has income, a business has expenses, and these are things that you have to figure out how to operate. And basically, you're taking that small business and you're integrating it into your own tax situation. And so if you think about it like that, you're running a business, and so the book goes through how to think about a writing business and what are the different parts of a writing business and how to approach it that way.
[00:10:11] But really, if the author is going to do that, the author is going to get organized, you have to have a conversation with the people who you designate to run your estate. And you really want to get on the same page with that person before you pass away. Because if you can do that, that'll make everything a lot easier. It'll make the transition much easier. Whereas if you pass away and leave a mess, then that person has to sort through all of these issues that they may not even understand, and you could be jeopardizing the legacy that you're wanting to leave.
[00:10:43] Matty: It does seem as if this process could be pricey. In the process of introducing the topic, you talked about the role of an accountant, the role of a lawyer, the role of financial planner. Now there's potentially another role that is business manager. You want your children or your grandchildren to inherit the proceeds from your author business, but either they're not interested or maybe equipped to run that. Is this something that you need like a legal team of four or five, or are there scalable methods you can use to approach this?
[00:11:10] Michael: I think you have to be careful. I would recommend caution. First and foremost, when you pass away, you're going to designate an executor of your estate. And that person is the person that has the final say with everything. Now, an executive can delegate some of their responsibility in terms of who has access to what accounts online and things like that. But you want to be careful because the more people that get involved, the more signals can get crossed, and there just can be all sorts of issues that come up.
[00:11:39] But yes, you certainly could hire an estate manager or a business manager if you wanted to. The problem is that there's not really an industry for that right now. I think in the future, as I mentioned in the beginning, not enough prominent self-published authors have passed away yet for this to be a thing. But I think in the next 10 to 20 years, I think there's going to be a cottage industry of people who specialize in this very thing, who can provide assistance for it.
[00:12:05] But right now there just aren't that many, you have to go to a professional author who has a lot of experience who would be willing to help you, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of work for one person to handle, especially if they've got a career of their own, they're raising children. And so that's why picking that person who's going to help you after you pass away is critical in finding the right person.
[00:12:28] Matty: This could be like a 17th career for you, Michael.
[00:12:33] Michael: Maybe, maybe not. I like writing books and that's ultimately where I landed on this. I would love to be able to help people, but this is complex stuff, and it gets sticky and the best way to handle it is to tackle it head on. And I think a lot of authors could figure this out, but you just have to have the ability to sit down and do it.
[00:12:51] Matty: Yeah, and for heirs, it's not only a matter of understanding the mechanics of publishing, but also genre-specific things. You could have an heir who loves westerns and now you're leaving them with a body of sci-fi fantasy work, and how are they going to know when the cover needs rebranding? Yeah.
[00:13:07] Michael: Exactly, and that's where hiring somebody that understands that comes into play, but that just doesn't exist just yet. But I think it's coming.
Sharing Passwords Securely
[00:13:15] Matty: You had mentioned the importance of doing things like sharing your passwords with your heirs. How do you recommend people do that in a way that doesn't jeopardize the security of the password?
[00:13:25] Michael: Yeah, I recommend using a password manager. There are mixed opinions on this. I think if you talk to any cybersecurity professional, a password manager like LastPass or 1Password or Dashlane, those are probably the most secure way you can do it. And I think about password managers as digital vaults. So they're apps that you can download to your computer or use in the browser, where you store all of your passwords in a secure vault in the cloud. And then you can use those passwords automatically to log in. So when you go to your KDP account, you just click on a little button, and it automatically fills your username and password.
[00:14:05] Now that freaks some people out. However, the security of these apps is actually pretty good. Like I said, cybersecurity professionals swear by them. I think if you talk to a lot of IT people, they would also tell you that these are very smart things to do. And the good thing about a password manager is that one, you don't have to remember every password you use. Two, they can generate very difficult and long passwords that are a lot harder to hack. And then three, you can use it as an estate planning tool. So you can categorize your passwords in terms of how you want your heirs to handle certain accounts when you're gone.
[00:14:42] And it's a very easy way to handle things, as opposed to writing all your passwords down or saving all your passwords on a file on your computer. That's a lot less secure in my opinion. But however you do it, I think you have to have some sort of system to make sure that you share your passwords and that you keep that up to date. Because just imagine for a second that you pass away, but you forgot to update your Amazon password. And so now your heirs are locked out of your KDP account forever. I think we can both agree that is a disaster scenario. Because it's just going to, it's a matter of time, because what happens is it starts this chain of events.
[00:15:20] So you pass away, they don't have access to your Amazon account, then they don't have access to maybe your bank information. And so then when you pass away, your bank account's going to have to get settled and it's probably going to be closed if you didn't set it up the correct way. So then Amazon can't pay your royalties. And so then it just starts this cycle in the cycle of doom that you try to avoid.
[00:15:45] Matty: And I'm jumping around a little bit, but here's a question I probably should have asked right from the get-go. When we're talking about the potential benefit that an heir inherits, and the idea of the length of copyright and how long after an author's death their heirs are entitled to money from that work. Can you give a little bit of background about that?
[00:16:05] Michael: Yeah, when you publish a book, you and your heirs have that copyright for your life plus 70 years. So while you're alive, you solely enjoy that benefit. And then when you pass away, your heirs can continue making money for your book for 70 years. But really, it's indefinite. They can continue selling it after 70 years. It's just that you don't have the control. Your book will enter the public domain, and so their other people that can publish and remix your work. And so we're talking about a really long time here, especially if you have a long life.
[00:16:38] And so that's why being organized now and getting your affairs in order is critical because the person that manages your estate tomorrow, meaning tomorrow after you pass away, realistically, if it's a child, they could be managing your estate for the rest of their lives. And then, your grandchild could be managing the estate up until that 70-year mark.
[00:17:00] And so, this is a lot of time we're talking about here. And it's almost hard to wrap your head around and comprehend just how much time that really is, especially when you think about how quickly technology and society is changing right now.
[00:17:13] Matty: Yeah, it does highlight how it's similar to, but also different than a small business, because if you inherit your grandfather's dry-cleaning business, then you're probably just going to sell it and keep the money. Whereas IP is intrinsically different in that it continues having that value with less effort hopefully, on the part of the heirs than if you suddenly decided you had to run a dry-cleaning operation.
[00:17:38] Yeah, when most people pass away, their income stops, and when the author passes away, the income continues. And it's up to the heirs if they want that income to continue, they have to manage the estate. There are all sorts of little things that pop up from time to time. Like for example, if Kobo changes something and you need to go and change something in your books in order to keep the books for sale, or if Amazon adopts a new standard, or if all book retailers adopt a new ebook standard, and now all of the eBooks that you've published are out date. If your heirs don't do anything, your books might get pulled from sale. And so there's all these little things.
[00:18:18] That's why I'm trying to condition people to think with your heirs, that it's not just, they can sit back in a chair and relax and take the money. They're going have to actively manage the estate on some level. Now, some heirs may not want to manage very much, they may just want to take that money until it runs out. Other people may be able to manage the estate and do more with the estate than the author could have ever dreamed of in their lifetime.
[00:18:42] Yeah. So I wanted to skip to a section called, The Silver Bullets of Doom. Can you describe what the silver bullets of doom are?
[00:18:53] Michael: I had to get people's attention somehow. So the silver bullets of doom are the things that when I was researching this and coming up with my own estate plan, frankly, these were the things that scared the crap out of me, because if you get them wrong, then your chances of having an author estate that lasts are pretty slim. So if any one of these, usually when you think of the term silver bullet, you think of it in the positive sense, oh, you hit a werewolf with a silver bullet, and it disintegrates. But I'm talking about it in the negative sense. If any of these silver bullets hit your estate, your estate is probably going to disintegrate.
[00:19:26] Matty: We've already hit a couple of them, I think, but describe a couple of examples of the silver bullets of doom and what an author would need to do to have them be good bullets instead of bad bullets.
[00:19:36] Michael: Yeah, we talked about passwords. That's the most critical one. If your heirs can't get into your passwords or your accounts, you're stuck. Maybe if you're lucky, if you know, the Amazons and Googles smile down upon you and decide to grant you access, you can get lucky. Probably not though.
[00:19:54] And the first step, the first prerequisite, I think to anything before we talk about any silver bullets is making sure you get your will and your trusts, if you have a trusts, set up correctly. So that you don't have this problem, so that you make sure you designate the proper people. And then you also make sure that those people have access, without having to send a note to Amazon asking for access, because that just makes your life 10 times harder. So passwords are the first silver bullet.
[00:20:21] The second or another silver bullet we can talk about is, I mentioned two-factor authentication, because if your heir has your username and passwords, but they can't get that one-time password that gets texted to your phone, they don't get access to your account.
[00:20:36] And I think a lot of people, probably they get that one-time code texted to their phone and they never stop to think about, huh, maybe I need to make sure that my heirs don't immediately disconnect my phone when I pass away. Because if they do, then they will be permanently locked out of all of your accounts.
[00:20:54] And that's a perfect example of how advice for estate planning for regular people could be detrimental to someone that runs a business, particularly an author business. So that's one thing.
[00:21:06] Another silver bullet is bank accounts. Making sure you set your bank accounts up correctly with a business. Bank accounts are complicated, but basically, if you have a bank account that's in your name only, which most people probably will, because why would you put a spouse on a joint business account? Some people maybe do that, but if you pass away, your executor is going to have to settle your bank account. And what that means without going too deeply into it, is that all the money in the bank account is going to be pulled out and given to whoever you designated to get that money.
[00:21:43] Well, herein lies the problem, 30 days from the time that that account gets canceled, you're probably going to get paid by KDP and Google and Draft2Digital and all these other places, and all of a sudden, that money's not going to have anywhere to go. And so you have to make sure you're planning for that and figuring out what you're going to do about that.
[00:22:01] Now, there are different ways you can handle it, I talk about them in the book. Maybe it's probably a little bit more complicated than we can get into here but figuring out what to do with the money is an important thing, because the most important thing you want to do is make sure that your heirs never lose access to the money. Because if that happens, again, you're not going to have much of an estate because there's not going to be much they can do if they're not going to get your royalties.
[00:22:25] Matty: So if an author has done their due diligence in terms of making their passwords available to their heirs, and the heir has a question about something and contacts KDP support, is there going to be issues if they identify themselves as the heir of the author rather than the author themselves?
[00:22:43] Michael: Yeah, that's a great question. So as part of this book, I actually did some field research. I actually reached out to all the major retailers, and I asked them, do you have a protocol or a system in place to handle a deceased author? What does an heir need to do in order to one, access the account and two, in order to continue getting money from the account?
[00:23:05] And all of the retailers replied, and they were fantastically gracious with their responses. And really, the short answer to your question is, when you pass away, one of the first things you probably want to do, or your heir probably wants to do is reach out to the retailers and let them know that you've passed. Because it's one thing that they have passwords to your account. Ownership is the other part of it. You just want to make sure that they know that you've passed away. You don't have to let them know right away, certainly. Some people may not want to do that. But you just want to make sure you understand what each retailer's rules are. And that's an important piece.
[00:23:43] So access is one thing, being able to get access to the passwords and to the accounts, but also you want to settle the ownership piece. And I talk about this in the book.
[00:23:52] Matty: Are there any common indy author platforms that you spoke with who were more or less onerous in their requirements?
[00:24:03] Michael: Yeah, yeah. Most of them said the same thing, which is, like Amazon, for example, and I'm only naming names because there were a little unique. Amazon basically has guidelines on the KDP website, which if you actually go to the KDP website, I forget where exactly it is, but they actually have guidelines on what to do if you ever become deceased. So you basically have to send them a copy of the will. The executor has to send them the papers that basically say that you're appointed to handle the estate, and they'll work with you and they can even transfer books from accounts, merge accounts too.
[00:24:36] So KDP makes it really easy. Apple and Google, they actually have, if you publish directly with them, they have this ability to add users to your account. So for example, if I have an account and Matty, I want you to be able to help manage the estate, I can grant access to you as a user. And then, as long as there is a user, I think with legal access or admin access, it doesn't matter if I pass away or if my account gets canceled, but you'll still be able to access the books and publish them and manage them accordingly.
[00:25:04] And then there are some, I won't name names, but they're in the book, they want the heir to create a new account. Which means you have to kind of re-upload all of the books, which is a bummer, but there's not that many that require that.
[00:25:49] Matty: Are there any other sort of production related tips you'd like to share here? I want to move on to more sort of promotional marketing questions, but any other basic production tips?
[00:26:02] Michael: The biggest production tip is, one of the things that I include in the book is I include a template. It's an Excel template and it allows you to fill in the blanks. So I created it for myself, and I figured out, what are the things that my wife or a relative would need to know to manage my estate and know where everything is? And I supply a free template, it's not a legal document, it's not anything other than just a little organizer to help you figure everything out.
[00:26:30] So there's a lot that we didn't talk about in this today, but it'll help you get your affairs in order, and I think some people like structure, and this is a topic that doesn't have a whole lot of structure. So being able to fill in the blanks on some things and add in and customize to your taste, I think a lot of people will find helpful.
[00:26:47] Matty: The more structure, the better, in my opinion.
[00:26:49] Michael: Yes, absolutely.
[00:26:51] Matty: So actually, I did want to ask one more question that might be more production related. Are there different approaches people need to take if their writing as an individual author, as opposed to for example, if they've formed an LLC around their creative work?
[00:27:04] Michael: Yeah, there are some differences. There are a lot of commonalities. If you have created a, like a publishing entity, like an LLC or a corporation, then you need to talk to an attorney regardless, but you definitely need to talk to an attorney because you have to figure out what this succession looks like and make sure that, like here in the United States, that your articles of incorporation and that your operating agreement correctly designate what happens to the business when you pass away.
[00:27:30] A lot of people will buy templates and stuff online. Again, this is not legal advice, but a lot of people will buy like operating agreements for LLCs and things like that. They'll buy those online, and then they won't realize that there might be a clause in there that could get them into trouble. So that's why I highly recommend that you talk to an attorney, especially if you're further down the road and a little bit more advanced with more publishing entities.
[00:27:52] Matty: And is there a particular specialty for a lawyer that you should be looking at when you choose one?
[00:27:58] Michael: If you can find the mythical unicorn of an estate planning attorney who specializes in copyright in your state, then 100%, that's who I would try to find. I think the problem most people are going to have is that you'll be able to find an estate planning attorney, but the problem is, you won't really be able to find somebody that understands authors. That's the problem I had. I probably talked to a dozen attorneys, and they didn't really know what to do with me. Because on one hand, I've got a relatively simple estate. I've got a daughter, a wife, life insurance, like a house, a car, like super simple. And then I say, oh, by the way, I've got these 70 books, plus 400 plus YouTube videos. And their eyes just kind of glazed over.
[00:28:44] Michael: So what I had to do, is I had to find a good estate planning attorney in my area. And then I had to consult with a copyright attorney who understands authors.
[00:28:54] Unfortunately, that person was in another state. So I had to pay them a consultation fee, and then when I got my will drafted and all this other stuff, I was able to ask them a bunch of questions to help steer me in the right direction and get a second opinion. So more than likely if you want to do this correctly, you're going to need the help of two different attorneys.
[00:29:13] And I know a lot of people don't like to hear that, but again, be careful, because the problem I ran into with my first estate planning attorney, they were a decent attorney, but they didn't understand the author business, and they didn't bother to ask around in the profession on what to do. And so I ended up getting a will that was horrible for what I needed to do and for my own business.
[00:29:36] So you have to be really careful. Just because an attorney is qualified in estate planning, that doesn't mean that they understand authors. So just be very careful with that.
[00:29:44] Matty: Yeah, I have a very limited experience with this, but many years ago, when I was getting my will done, I went to a lawyer someone recommended. This is independent of my author business; this was before I was writing or publishing. And met with this person, and as you're saying, it was a very simple, I think, straightforward kind of scenario, but I couldn't get an estimate. And I was finally asking questions like, can you tell me how many digits are likely to be in the number that you bill me? You don't have to tell me if it's a thousand dollars or $9,000, but you need to tell me at least that it's four digits as opposed to three or five. And I never got the answer. Is this something that was just odd to this one particular person, or is it that hard to get an estimate from a lawyer about how much this is likely going to be?
[00:30:27] Michael: That's extremely odd. All of the attorneys I consulted with were more than happy to share what they charge. It depends on what you want to do. If you want just a simple will, that's going to cost less than say, a will and a trust and advanced medical directive. Generally, I think the quotes I got were anywhere between $500 to $2,000, $500 being more simple, $2,000 being a little bit more complex with the trust. So not cheap. It's definitely a chunk of change, but you'll save so much money. Like it's amazing how much you will save.
[00:30:58] Like you can spend $2,000 on getting a will and a trust. And if you don't do that and you have to go through probate and you die without a will and you've got to do intestate proceedings and things like that, some places will take a percentage of your estate just for inconveniencing them with the burden of doing that. And it's either pay now or pay later, is what I like to say.
[00:31:20] Matty: Yeah.
[00:31:21] So I wanted to switch to maybe a more lighthearted topic, but I guess by definition, none of these topics are going to be lighthearted, but that's reader outreach, promotion, marketing, social media kind of thing. I wish I could, I'm sure a listener, maybe you will know who I'm talking about, but a couple of years ago, a well-known crime writer passed away. And she must have been terminally ill because one day, her Facebook post was, if you're reading this, it means that I died. And she had written her last letter to her fans and followers. And that sort of one end of the preparedness spectrum, and then the other end of the preparedness spectrum is still getting birthday announcements on Facebook from people that have passed away. So obviously, there's no one managing their social media account. Do you have recommendations for that? Less legally-based recommendations, but I don't know, sensitivity-based recommendations about how to interact with your fans and followers?
[00:32:17] Michael: It's interesting, I actually ran into this when I was doing my own planning. So social media sites, if you read the terms of service for most of them, this is a vague generalization, but it's true for probably 90% of them. They explicitly do not a allow you to use the account of another person. So like Facebook, for example, it is against Facebook's terms to use another person's account or to allow another person to use your account.
[00:32:42] So when you pass, they basically give you a few options. The first option is, basically you could delete your account before you pass, so that way you don't have to worry about the birthday notifications. The second way is, under the table, you could have your heir log in and delete your account. Or you could do what's called the Memorialization Service. And when you memorialize your Facebook account, basically the heir notifies Facebook to let them know that you've passed away and then they basically change your account so that it looks like a memorial.
[00:33:14] So people can still post on your wall and pay their respects. And then the heir is the person that manages the day-to-day affairs of anything that can comes in with the account. If a social media website uses that, I would recommend that people take a hard look at that. That to me makes the most sense. That way you don't have to worry about getting the birthday notifications. They treat it sensitively.
[00:33:35] As far as other stuff, like last letters to readers, email newsletters to people, letting them know that you've passed, I think that's a conversation you should have with whoever is going to manage your affairs when you've passed away. So for example, how do you want announcements to go out, that you have passed away? Do you want someone to announce that on your newsletter, do you want someone to announce it on your YouTube channel? Maybe there is a close friend that can upload a video to your channel that announces it.
[00:34:07] Because don't forget, readers bond with you over your books and they're going to want to pay their respects and they're going to want to know that you've passed away and you should think about giving them a space to gather and pay their respects to you as well. And then also, there's newsletters and things like that. How do you use those? But I think every author is going to be unique and different because every author's platform is going to be different.
[00:34:30] Someone that has a podcast is going to probably go about this a lot differently than someone that has a YouTube channel or just an author that just has a regular Facebook page. So I don't think that there's a concrete cut and dry answer for everybody. But I just, I encourage people to really think about that. Think about how you can be thoughtful or how your heirs can be thoughtful about sharing the news with the world.
[00:34:54] Matty: And for a site like Facebook, is there a difference in how you treat it if it's a business page, as opposed to a personal profile? Would someone else be able to take over management of a business page where they would not be able to take over management of a personal profile?
[00:35:09] Michael: I don't know the direct answer to that. My understanding again, this is just based on my own research, but my understanding is that your business account is tied to your personal Facebook account. I don't think you can create just a business account on Facebook without having some sort of personal page attached to it. I could be wrong on that, because I'm not that deep into Facebook. If you can do that then, yeah, maybe there's a way you can pass business accounts to another person, that would be great. But my understanding of Facebook and knowing what I know about them, I don't know that you can do that.
[00:35:39] Matty: It would be interesting to find out, you know, I think a lot of small businesses use Facebook page as kind of a replacement for a website. Jane's Flowers or whatever. And if something happens to Jane, you would hope that Jane's assistant manager or whatever, it wouldn't just be locked out. But yeah, I see what you're saying about it being tied to a personal page. It does make it tricky.
[00:36:00] Michael: Yep, for sure.
[00:36:02] Matty: So unfortunately, scams are another thing that you need to talk about in the book. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Protecting Against Scammers
[00:36:08] Michael: Yeah, authors are magnets for scams. We have big dreams and there are bad guys out there that know that we'll do anything to achieve those dreams, even if it means parting with our hard-earned money. And I don't have to tell you, Matty, that there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there that prey on authors every day. I think the same will also be true with heirs.
[00:36:30] And I think the thing that heirs have going against them is the fact that, one, if you don't know what's going on, then you're way more susceptible to getting scammed. Because someone's going to come in and say, oh, we can help you do this and we can help you do that, and you won't have to spend any time. You can just sit back in your chair and get paid. And what heir wouldn't want to do that? Especially if they don't have an understanding that, maybe somebody's charging them $200 to do something that they can easily do with a mouse click, if they knew how to do it.
[00:37:00] And so that's why I wrote the AUTHOR HEIR HANDBOOK is to try to arm people with knowledge on, okay, here's what you should consider paying for. Here's what you can absolutely do yourself if you had just even a modicum of tech ability, like fixing a typo in a book, right? That if the author uses Vellum, it is as simple as going in Vellum, fixing the typo and clicking the Generate button, and then re-uploading the book. But not everyone's going to know that.
[00:37:27] And so I think that authors, while you're alive, you have a responsibility to educate the people who are going to take over your estate, to help them understand what a scam potentially will look like.
[00:37:39] Matty: I'm becoming fascinated with this idea of having this be a profession, not for me, but for somebody, especially because I'm experiencing a lot of my friends going through the period where their parents are getting old and passing on and they're having to deal with their estates. And in most cases, simpler is the what we're talking about here, because you don't have this ongoing sense of income earning potential.
[00:38:00] But it would be interesting even if an heir could find like a virtual assistant, because I would think a lot of the things that would need to be done, like they might say, oh, Vellum, ah, no, I can't. And someone who's familiar with Vellum would know that it's just as easy as you described, but this person has no really interest in learning a new software package, and that maybe they could find people within the author services community who would be able to help them through some of these mechanical or administrative things.
[00:38:27] Michael: Oh, absolutely. And again, it comes down to picking the right people and knowing when you're evaluating someone, if you're getting taken for a ride or if they're legitimate. And if you're an overwhelmed heir, just taking over an estate, you have no idea. Especially if the author was disorganized, you have no idea who you can trust. And I think it's going to be an unfortunate consequence of not being enough information out there about author estate planning.
[00:38:52] I hope I can help solve that a little bit, but I still think that just as authors are magnets for scams, heirs are going to be magnets for scams too, especially the same types of scams that authors fall for. So if there's some scammy literary award or something like that, that the author won in death and someone emails and says, oh, we would love to feature this. The same stuff that authors fall for is the same stuff that heirs could potentially fall for.
[00:39:16] Matty: Yeah.
[00:39:16] Michael: So I just think you have to be careful.
[00:39:18] Matty: Yeah, we should all have Writer Beware, like bookmarked on our computer.
[00:39:23] Michael: Agreed.
[00:39:23] Matty: Anytime one of those things comes in. So if somebody's listening to this and they're saying, oh my God, what is one thing?
The First Step to Take [00:39:30] Matty: If you just had to tell them one thing, they should do in order to start to pave the way toward a well-organized estate situation, what would it be?
[00:39:37] Michael: The one thing you can do today, if you don't have a will, fix that right now. Just fix that problem. Because it's kind of like Monopoly, do not pass, go do not collect $200. If you don't have a will, you're just not serious about this. You're just not serious about it. And the good thing about wills, is you can call an attorney and you can figure that out. And then you can figure that part out, you can read the section in the book that I talk about with wills. I tried to be as thorough and comprehensive as possible in terms of what people are typically doing and how an attorney will think about it and use that as a starting point for having a conversation with your attorney.
[00:40:17] And if you've got a good attorney, then they should be doing their due diligence to try to figure out how to understand you and your business. That's all to me, is always the mark of a good attorney is one that listens, and one that tries to find solutions for you instead of trying to shoehorn you into just a template.
[00:40:33] And so that would be the first thing I would do. If you have a will already, then I would recommend that you pull it out and you read it. And does it mention your copyrights? If it does, what does it say? And you might be horrified at what you read if you trusted your attorney to do it, and maybe they didn't do a good job. That's the first step, and then everything else flows naturally from there.
[00:40:55] Matty: Well Michael, once again, you're always a font of fabulous information. It's been so nice to have you back. Please let the listeners and viewers know where they can go to find out more about you and all you do online.
[00:41:07] Michael: Yeah. If you're interested in the AUTHOR ESTATE HANDBOOK, you can check that out at authorlevelup.com/estatehandbook, and it's got links to all the places where you can buy it. It's available in ebook and paperback. It's coming soon in large print. And then if you're interested in the AUTHOR HEIR HANDBOOK, not sure when you're listening to this, but it should be available in the next week or two. You can get that at authorlevelup.com/heirhandbook. And I am releasing a bundle with both books together.
[00:41:34] So why not pick up a book to take care of your author estate and then pick up the book for your spouse, the AUTHOR HEIR HANDBOOK, and slip that in your safe deposit box? So they have that when when you pass away, they can read it. All right, so you can find links to everything at the links I gave you at authorlevelup.com/estatehandbook or heirhandbook, and you'll be able to find links to the bundle there as well.
[00:41:55] Matty: Great, thank you so much, Michael.
[00:41:57] Michael: Thanks, Matty.
[00:00:05] Michael: Hey, Matty. Great to be back.
[00:00:07] Matty: I am happy to have you back. I'll be getting to a list of your previous episodes in a moment. You're getting right up there; I think you're a five-timer now.
[00:00:14] Michael: All right, that's good.
[00:00:15] Matty: So to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Michael La Ronn is the author of over 40 science fiction and fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He also runs the popular YouTube channel Author Level Up, where he publishes weekly advice videos for writers. Michael also serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a US ambassador, and he co-hosts the Ask ALLi Member Q&A podcast, where he answers new writers' most burning questions about self-publishing.
[00:00:40] And the previous episodes of the podcast that Michael has been on of The Indy Author Podcast are episode 96, EMERGING TECH FOR THE WRITING CRAFT, 90 was BRINGING A CREATIVE ENDEAVOR TO AN END, 55 was THE COSTS OF SELF-PUBLISHING A BOOK and 82 was, you were one of the all-star cast of PERSPECTIVES ON WRITER'S BLOCK. So if you're curious to see any of Michael's previous appearances on the podcast, just go to TheIndyAuthor.Com/podcast and search on his name.
[00:01:06] And Michael is back today to talk about estate planning for authors.
[00:01:11] So normally, I think that we would say, our disclaimers are, we are not actually lawyers, and so take all this advice with a grain of salt, but that's not really the case. Do you want to describe a little bit about the background that led you to writing this book?
[00:01:24] Michael: Yeah, the disclaimers still apply. I did go to law school. I have abbreviated legal background, so I'm not a lawyer. I don't pretend to be one. I don't hold myself out as one, but I thought that having a little bit of a legal background could help in writing a look like this. So by no means should you take anything that we're about to discuss as legal advice, but I tried to write something that would benefit everyone and be a really good starting point for figuring out what to talk to a lawyer about.
[00:01:50] Matty: Okay.
[00:01:50] Michael: So this book is a good handbook to help you do that.
[00:01:54] Matty: And it's almost better, I think sometimes when it's not written by someone who's deeply immersed career-wise in law, because I think that you're better at spinning it out in terminology that's going to be accessible and understandable to indy authors.
[00:02:07] Michael: Yeah, God bless the legal profession, but sometimes they can get really deep into concepts. So it helps to have somebody who understands you when you're reading a book like this.
[00:02:16] Yep, so what were some of the things that you saw happening in the indy author community that made you think that this kind of book was going to be a useful resource to people?
Making It Easy for Your Heirs
[00:02:25] I've been talking about this for the last few years. I think that when more authors start dying and, forgive me for using the word dying so freely, but when more author authors start dying, passing away, I think that we're going to have a problem because there aren't very many resources on how to manage an author estate.
[00:02:46] And you combine that with the fact that, you are probably the only person who is doing your author business. Meaning, it is solely up to you. You might have a spouse, you might have a child that understands on a superficial level what you're doing, but when you pass away and all of a sudden, it's now up to them to manage your books, to keep the money coming in so that they can benefit from it.
[00:03:11] I think the initial reaction is, oh my God, I don't know what to do. And I think the author also has a reaction of, oh my God, I don't know how to prepare for this. So you combine those two statements together, and I think you have a recipe for a train wreck. And I think not enough prominent self-published authors have passed away yet for this to really be a problem.
[00:03:32] And so I've been talking about it for the last few years, just off and on, but over the past year, my grandfather passed away. He passed away of old age at the age of 93 and it was a sad time, but I don't know the best way, sometimes I'm not good with my words, but my grandfather passed away like a gangster.
[00:03:49] Like he had everything organized, like he had a will that was very neatly organized, distributed his property, distributed his assets to everyone. He had all the bank account information taken care of. He left an estate that was so easy to manage, it almost managed itself. And I thought, wow, that is, of all the things that my grandfather taught me, I think that was one of the most profound things because in order to do that, it takes a lot of organization and that comes from a place of true love.
[00:04:21] And I thought to myself, okay, how can I pass away the same way that my grandfather passed away, given the fact that, okay, my grandfather never owned a computer, he never was on the internet, he grew up during The Great Depression, so completely different generation. But what would that look like with a millennial or someone who is actively engaged in the digital world today? And that's what started me on this journey.
[00:04:44] Matty: So I wanted to talk very generally. You talk about the three stages of estate management. And I want to talk about that generally to give us context, but I was very interested, the book breaks out some specific topics that I don't think I've seen addressed much if at all in other resources. So let's start first with the context setting, the three stages of estate management. What are those?
Estate Management: Planning
[00:05:08] Michael: Yeah, the first stage, I think it's always helpful to think about things in steps, because it makes it that much easier to consume. So the first stage is planning your estate. So this is when you really look at what you have and you figure out what are my goals, what do I want to do?
[00:05:25] So going and talking to an attorney to figure out what should be in your will.
[00:05:30] Now, as an author, most people can go and get a will done relatively easy, but it's the author part where people kind of mess up, all right? So figuring that out, figuring out what your goals are, getting your advanced medical directives together, figuring out if you want a trust. All of these things that you need in a qualified estate attorney, an accountant and a financial advisor. That is the first stage. That's where you figure out what you have, you figure out what you want, and then you engage with people to help you figure out how to get there. That's the first stage, not terribly complicated.
[00:06:06] The second stage is where things start falling apart and that is organizing your estate. So that's when you figured out, okay, what do I want? And you've engaged people. Now, you've got to start articulating what you want. And when you meet with your estate attorneys and your copyright attorneys, you have to be able to articulate what it is that you want so that they can craft everything for you.
[00:06:27] But the more important part about all of this is, organizing all of these pieces. It's kind of like a giant puzzle. It's organizing all of these pieces so that you don't leave a mess when you pass away. So organizing things like your passwords. So if you have a password to your computer, gosh, I hope you've written that down somewhere for your heirs to get into, because otherwise they don't have access to your devices.
[00:06:52] Securing your phone, you would ask why would you need to secure your phone? Well, because of things like two-factor authentication, which more often than not goes to your phone. And so, even if your heirs have your username and password, they won't be able to get into your accounts if they can't get that one-time password that gets texted out. Things like figuring out what to do with your bank accounts, figuring out what to do with your email accounts. Leaving a document trail for your heirs to figure out just how the heck you run things. I think this is the biggest and most complex and vast part of running the estate.
[00:07:27] And this is not necessarily a phase that an attorney can help you with. The attorneys can help you with the wills. They can help you with the trust. They can help you with the legal questions, but as far as getting organized, not so much. And so that's really up to you to figure out a logical, simple way that you can help your heirs.
3rd Stage of Estate Management: Managing
[00:07:45] And then the final stage is managing the estate. This is when you have passed away and the estate is opened up and whoever you've designated, whether it be a spouse or a friend or a relative, that's when they start actively managing your estate, to keep the money for the books coming in to keep your accounts active, any other issues that may come up, as well as refreshing your titles from time to time. Maybe you've got a book that's really old, it needs a new cover, needs a new rebrand, or maybe there's a Netflix special that hits 10 years after your death, and the genre that you wrote in today, isn't very popular, but after your death, it skyrockets. Your estate can help with that and help with the rebranding and keeping your titles relevant so that you're constantly getting introduced to new generations of readers. So those are the three phases.
[00:08:32] Matty: Okay, I already have a question, which is about that last part. So some of these things that you're recommending and we're going to be talking about are sort of mechanical, you know, you make your passwords available to somebody, and I'll have questions about that too. But then when you start talking about maybe a cover needs rebranding. Now we're talking about a whole different level of understanding of the business, as opposed to someone sitting back and feeling confident that their royalties are going to where they want them to be. Do you have advice in terms of how you prepare your heirs for the business side of taking on this work?
[00:09:08] Michael: Yes, and I probably should mention the name of this book, because we've been talking about it. It's called THE AUTHOR ESTATE HANDBOOK, and it's how to organize your affairs and leave a legacy.
[00:09:18] Now to your question of how do you start preparing this information for your heirs? I actually have another book that's coming out in the next couple weeks. It's called THE AUTHOR HEIR HANDBOOK. And the book is written in plain English for someone who is inheriting an author estate. The key thing to remember is that you are inheriting a small business, if you're an heir. So the author, whether they thought about what they were doing as a business or not, you're inheriting a business. And a business has income, a business has expenses, and these are things that you have to figure out how to operate. And basically, you're taking that small business and you're integrating it into your own tax situation. And so if you think about it like that, you're running a business, and so the book goes through how to think about a writing business and what are the different parts of a writing business and how to approach it that way.
[00:10:11] But really, if the author is going to do that, the author is going to get organized, you have to have a conversation with the people who you designate to run your estate. And you really want to get on the same page with that person before you pass away. Because if you can do that, that'll make everything a lot easier. It'll make the transition much easier. Whereas if you pass away and leave a mess, then that person has to sort through all of these issues that they may not even understand, and you could be jeopardizing the legacy that you're wanting to leave.
[00:10:43] Matty: It does seem as if this process could be pricey. In the process of introducing the topic, you talked about the role of an accountant, the role of a lawyer, the role of financial planner. Now there's potentially another role that is business manager. You want your children or your grandchildren to inherit the proceeds from your author business, but either they're not interested or maybe equipped to run that. Is this something that you need like a legal team of four or five, or are there scalable methods you can use to approach this?
[00:11:10] Michael: I think you have to be careful. I would recommend caution. First and foremost, when you pass away, you're going to designate an executor of your estate. And that person is the person that has the final say with everything. Now, an executive can delegate some of their responsibility in terms of who has access to what accounts online and things like that. But you want to be careful because the more people that get involved, the more signals can get crossed, and there just can be all sorts of issues that come up.
[00:11:39] But yes, you certainly could hire an estate manager or a business manager if you wanted to. The problem is that there's not really an industry for that right now. I think in the future, as I mentioned in the beginning, not enough prominent self-published authors have passed away yet for this to be a thing. But I think in the next 10 to 20 years, I think there's going to be a cottage industry of people who specialize in this very thing, who can provide assistance for it.
[00:12:05] But right now there just aren't that many, you have to go to a professional author who has a lot of experience who would be willing to help you, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of work for one person to handle, especially if they've got a career of their own, they're raising children. And so that's why picking that person who's going to help you after you pass away is critical in finding the right person.
[00:12:28] Matty: This could be like a 17th career for you, Michael.
[00:12:33] Michael: Maybe, maybe not. I like writing books and that's ultimately where I landed on this. I would love to be able to help people, but this is complex stuff, and it gets sticky and the best way to handle it is to tackle it head on. And I think a lot of authors could figure this out, but you just have to have the ability to sit down and do it.
[00:12:51] Matty: Yeah, and for heirs, it's not only a matter of understanding the mechanics of publishing, but also genre-specific things. You could have an heir who loves westerns and now you're leaving them with a body of sci-fi fantasy work, and how are they going to know when the cover needs rebranding? Yeah.
[00:13:07] Michael: Exactly, and that's where hiring somebody that understands that comes into play, but that just doesn't exist just yet. But I think it's coming.
Sharing Passwords Securely
[00:13:15] Matty: You had mentioned the importance of doing things like sharing your passwords with your heirs. How do you recommend people do that in a way that doesn't jeopardize the security of the password?
[00:13:25] Michael: Yeah, I recommend using a password manager. There are mixed opinions on this. I think if you talk to any cybersecurity professional, a password manager like LastPass or 1Password or Dashlane, those are probably the most secure way you can do it. And I think about password managers as digital vaults. So they're apps that you can download to your computer or use in the browser, where you store all of your passwords in a secure vault in the cloud. And then you can use those passwords automatically to log in. So when you go to your KDP account, you just click on a little button, and it automatically fills your username and password.
[00:14:05] Now that freaks some people out. However, the security of these apps is actually pretty good. Like I said, cybersecurity professionals swear by them. I think if you talk to a lot of IT people, they would also tell you that these are very smart things to do. And the good thing about a password manager is that one, you don't have to remember every password you use. Two, they can generate very difficult and long passwords that are a lot harder to hack. And then three, you can use it as an estate planning tool. So you can categorize your passwords in terms of how you want your heirs to handle certain accounts when you're gone.
[00:14:42] And it's a very easy way to handle things, as opposed to writing all your passwords down or saving all your passwords on a file on your computer. That's a lot less secure in my opinion. But however you do it, I think you have to have some sort of system to make sure that you share your passwords and that you keep that up to date. Because just imagine for a second that you pass away, but you forgot to update your Amazon password. And so now your heirs are locked out of your KDP account forever. I think we can both agree that is a disaster scenario. Because it's just going to, it's a matter of time, because what happens is it starts this chain of events.
[00:15:20] So you pass away, they don't have access to your Amazon account, then they don't have access to maybe your bank information. And so then when you pass away, your bank account's going to have to get settled and it's probably going to be closed if you didn't set it up the correct way. So then Amazon can't pay your royalties. And so then it just starts this cycle in the cycle of doom that you try to avoid.
[00:15:45] Matty: And I'm jumping around a little bit, but here's a question I probably should have asked right from the get-go. When we're talking about the potential benefit that an heir inherits, and the idea of the length of copyright and how long after an author's death their heirs are entitled to money from that work. Can you give a little bit of background about that?
[00:16:05] Michael: Yeah, when you publish a book, you and your heirs have that copyright for your life plus 70 years. So while you're alive, you solely enjoy that benefit. And then when you pass away, your heirs can continue making money for your book for 70 years. But really, it's indefinite. They can continue selling it after 70 years. It's just that you don't have the control. Your book will enter the public domain, and so their other people that can publish and remix your work. And so we're talking about a really long time here, especially if you have a long life.
[00:16:38] And so that's why being organized now and getting your affairs in order is critical because the person that manages your estate tomorrow, meaning tomorrow after you pass away, realistically, if it's a child, they could be managing your estate for the rest of their lives. And then, your grandchild could be managing the estate up until that 70-year mark.
[00:17:00] And so, this is a lot of time we're talking about here. And it's almost hard to wrap your head around and comprehend just how much time that really is, especially when you think about how quickly technology and society is changing right now.
[00:17:13] Matty: Yeah, it does highlight how it's similar to, but also different than a small business, because if you inherit your grandfather's dry-cleaning business, then you're probably just going to sell it and keep the money. Whereas IP is intrinsically different in that it continues having that value with less effort hopefully, on the part of the heirs than if you suddenly decided you had to run a dry-cleaning operation.
[00:17:38] Yeah, when most people pass away, their income stops, and when the author passes away, the income continues. And it's up to the heirs if they want that income to continue, they have to manage the estate. There are all sorts of little things that pop up from time to time. Like for example, if Kobo changes something and you need to go and change something in your books in order to keep the books for sale, or if Amazon adopts a new standard, or if all book retailers adopt a new ebook standard, and now all of the eBooks that you've published are out date. If your heirs don't do anything, your books might get pulled from sale. And so there's all these little things.
[00:18:18] That's why I'm trying to condition people to think with your heirs, that it's not just, they can sit back in a chair and relax and take the money. They're going have to actively manage the estate on some level. Now, some heirs may not want to manage very much, they may just want to take that money until it runs out. Other people may be able to manage the estate and do more with the estate than the author could have ever dreamed of in their lifetime.
[00:18:42] Yeah. So I wanted to skip to a section called, The Silver Bullets of Doom. Can you describe what the silver bullets of doom are?
[00:18:53] Michael: I had to get people's attention somehow. So the silver bullets of doom are the things that when I was researching this and coming up with my own estate plan, frankly, these were the things that scared the crap out of me, because if you get them wrong, then your chances of having an author estate that lasts are pretty slim. So if any one of these, usually when you think of the term silver bullet, you think of it in the positive sense, oh, you hit a werewolf with a silver bullet, and it disintegrates. But I'm talking about it in the negative sense. If any of these silver bullets hit your estate, your estate is probably going to disintegrate.
[00:19:26] Matty: We've already hit a couple of them, I think, but describe a couple of examples of the silver bullets of doom and what an author would need to do to have them be good bullets instead of bad bullets.
[00:19:36] Michael: Yeah, we talked about passwords. That's the most critical one. If your heirs can't get into your passwords or your accounts, you're stuck. Maybe if you're lucky, if you know, the Amazons and Googles smile down upon you and decide to grant you access, you can get lucky. Probably not though.
[00:19:54] And the first step, the first prerequisite, I think to anything before we talk about any silver bullets is making sure you get your will and your trusts, if you have a trusts, set up correctly. So that you don't have this problem, so that you make sure you designate the proper people. And then you also make sure that those people have access, without having to send a note to Amazon asking for access, because that just makes your life 10 times harder. So passwords are the first silver bullet.
[00:20:21] The second or another silver bullet we can talk about is, I mentioned two-factor authentication, because if your heir has your username and passwords, but they can't get that one-time password that gets texted to your phone, they don't get access to your account.
[00:20:36] And I think a lot of people, probably they get that one-time code texted to their phone and they never stop to think about, huh, maybe I need to make sure that my heirs don't immediately disconnect my phone when I pass away. Because if they do, then they will be permanently locked out of all of your accounts.
[00:20:54] And that's a perfect example of how advice for estate planning for regular people could be detrimental to someone that runs a business, particularly an author business. So that's one thing.
[00:21:06] Another silver bullet is bank accounts. Making sure you set your bank accounts up correctly with a business. Bank accounts are complicated, but basically, if you have a bank account that's in your name only, which most people probably will, because why would you put a spouse on a joint business account? Some people maybe do that, but if you pass away, your executor is going to have to settle your bank account. And what that means without going too deeply into it, is that all the money in the bank account is going to be pulled out and given to whoever you designated to get that money.
[00:21:43] Well, herein lies the problem, 30 days from the time that that account gets canceled, you're probably going to get paid by KDP and Google and Draft2Digital and all these other places, and all of a sudden, that money's not going to have anywhere to go. And so you have to make sure you're planning for that and figuring out what you're going to do about that.
[00:22:01] Now, there are different ways you can handle it, I talk about them in the book. Maybe it's probably a little bit more complicated than we can get into here but figuring out what to do with the money is an important thing, because the most important thing you want to do is make sure that your heirs never lose access to the money. Because if that happens, again, you're not going to have much of an estate because there's not going to be much they can do if they're not going to get your royalties.
[00:22:25] Matty: So if an author has done their due diligence in terms of making their passwords available to their heirs, and the heir has a question about something and contacts KDP support, is there going to be issues if they identify themselves as the heir of the author rather than the author themselves?
[00:22:43] Michael: Yeah, that's a great question. So as part of this book, I actually did some field research. I actually reached out to all the major retailers, and I asked them, do you have a protocol or a system in place to handle a deceased author? What does an heir need to do in order to one, access the account and two, in order to continue getting money from the account?
[00:23:05] And all of the retailers replied, and they were fantastically gracious with their responses. And really, the short answer to your question is, when you pass away, one of the first things you probably want to do, or your heir probably wants to do is reach out to the retailers and let them know that you've passed. Because it's one thing that they have passwords to your account. Ownership is the other part of it. You just want to make sure that they know that you've passed away. You don't have to let them know right away, certainly. Some people may not want to do that. But you just want to make sure you understand what each retailer's rules are. And that's an important piece.
[00:23:43] So access is one thing, being able to get access to the passwords and to the accounts, but also you want to settle the ownership piece. And I talk about this in the book.
[00:23:52] Matty: Are there any common indy author platforms that you spoke with who were more or less onerous in their requirements?
[00:24:03] Michael: Yeah, yeah. Most of them said the same thing, which is, like Amazon, for example, and I'm only naming names because there were a little unique. Amazon basically has guidelines on the KDP website, which if you actually go to the KDP website, I forget where exactly it is, but they actually have guidelines on what to do if you ever become deceased. So you basically have to send them a copy of the will. The executor has to send them the papers that basically say that you're appointed to handle the estate, and they'll work with you and they can even transfer books from accounts, merge accounts too.
[00:24:36] So KDP makes it really easy. Apple and Google, they actually have, if you publish directly with them, they have this ability to add users to your account. So for example, if I have an account and Matty, I want you to be able to help manage the estate, I can grant access to you as a user. And then, as long as there is a user, I think with legal access or admin access, it doesn't matter if I pass away or if my account gets canceled, but you'll still be able to access the books and publish them and manage them accordingly.
[00:25:04] And then there are some, I won't name names, but they're in the book, they want the heir to create a new account. Which means you have to kind of re-upload all of the books, which is a bummer, but there's not that many that require that.
[00:25:49] Matty: Are there any other sort of production related tips you'd like to share here? I want to move on to more sort of promotional marketing questions, but any other basic production tips?
[00:26:02] Michael: The biggest production tip is, one of the things that I include in the book is I include a template. It's an Excel template and it allows you to fill in the blanks. So I created it for myself, and I figured out, what are the things that my wife or a relative would need to know to manage my estate and know where everything is? And I supply a free template, it's not a legal document, it's not anything other than just a little organizer to help you figure everything out.
[00:26:30] So there's a lot that we didn't talk about in this today, but it'll help you get your affairs in order, and I think some people like structure, and this is a topic that doesn't have a whole lot of structure. So being able to fill in the blanks on some things and add in and customize to your taste, I think a lot of people will find helpful.
[00:26:47] Matty: The more structure, the better, in my opinion.
[00:26:49] Michael: Yes, absolutely.
[00:26:51] Matty: So actually, I did want to ask one more question that might be more production related. Are there different approaches people need to take if their writing as an individual author, as opposed to for example, if they've formed an LLC around their creative work?
[00:27:04] Michael: Yeah, there are some differences. There are a lot of commonalities. If you have created a, like a publishing entity, like an LLC or a corporation, then you need to talk to an attorney regardless, but you definitely need to talk to an attorney because you have to figure out what this succession looks like and make sure that, like here in the United States, that your articles of incorporation and that your operating agreement correctly designate what happens to the business when you pass away.
[00:27:30] A lot of people will buy templates and stuff online. Again, this is not legal advice, but a lot of people will buy like operating agreements for LLCs and things like that. They'll buy those online, and then they won't realize that there might be a clause in there that could get them into trouble. So that's why I highly recommend that you talk to an attorney, especially if you're further down the road and a little bit more advanced with more publishing entities.
[00:27:52] Matty: And is there a particular specialty for a lawyer that you should be looking at when you choose one?
[00:27:58] Michael: If you can find the mythical unicorn of an estate planning attorney who specializes in copyright in your state, then 100%, that's who I would try to find. I think the problem most people are going to have is that you'll be able to find an estate planning attorney, but the problem is, you won't really be able to find somebody that understands authors. That's the problem I had. I probably talked to a dozen attorneys, and they didn't really know what to do with me. Because on one hand, I've got a relatively simple estate. I've got a daughter, a wife, life insurance, like a house, a car, like super simple. And then I say, oh, by the way, I've got these 70 books, plus 400 plus YouTube videos. And their eyes just kind of glazed over.
[00:28:44] Michael: So what I had to do, is I had to find a good estate planning attorney in my area. And then I had to consult with a copyright attorney who understands authors.
[00:28:54] Unfortunately, that person was in another state. So I had to pay them a consultation fee, and then when I got my will drafted and all this other stuff, I was able to ask them a bunch of questions to help steer me in the right direction and get a second opinion. So more than likely if you want to do this correctly, you're going to need the help of two different attorneys.
[00:29:13] And I know a lot of people don't like to hear that, but again, be careful, because the problem I ran into with my first estate planning attorney, they were a decent attorney, but they didn't understand the author business, and they didn't bother to ask around in the profession on what to do. And so I ended up getting a will that was horrible for what I needed to do and for my own business.
[00:29:36] So you have to be really careful. Just because an attorney is qualified in estate planning, that doesn't mean that they understand authors. So just be very careful with that.
[00:29:44] Matty: Yeah, I have a very limited experience with this, but many years ago, when I was getting my will done, I went to a lawyer someone recommended. This is independent of my author business; this was before I was writing or publishing. And met with this person, and as you're saying, it was a very simple, I think, straightforward kind of scenario, but I couldn't get an estimate. And I was finally asking questions like, can you tell me how many digits are likely to be in the number that you bill me? You don't have to tell me if it's a thousand dollars or $9,000, but you need to tell me at least that it's four digits as opposed to three or five. And I never got the answer. Is this something that was just odd to this one particular person, or is it that hard to get an estimate from a lawyer about how much this is likely going to be?
[00:30:27] Michael: That's extremely odd. All of the attorneys I consulted with were more than happy to share what they charge. It depends on what you want to do. If you want just a simple will, that's going to cost less than say, a will and a trust and advanced medical directive. Generally, I think the quotes I got were anywhere between $500 to $2,000, $500 being more simple, $2,000 being a little bit more complex with the trust. So not cheap. It's definitely a chunk of change, but you'll save so much money. Like it's amazing how much you will save.
[00:30:58] Like you can spend $2,000 on getting a will and a trust. And if you don't do that and you have to go through probate and you die without a will and you've got to do intestate proceedings and things like that, some places will take a percentage of your estate just for inconveniencing them with the burden of doing that. And it's either pay now or pay later, is what I like to say.
[00:31:20] Matty: Yeah.
[00:31:21] So I wanted to switch to maybe a more lighthearted topic, but I guess by definition, none of these topics are going to be lighthearted, but that's reader outreach, promotion, marketing, social media kind of thing. I wish I could, I'm sure a listener, maybe you will know who I'm talking about, but a couple of years ago, a well-known crime writer passed away. And she must have been terminally ill because one day, her Facebook post was, if you're reading this, it means that I died. And she had written her last letter to her fans and followers. And that sort of one end of the preparedness spectrum, and then the other end of the preparedness spectrum is still getting birthday announcements on Facebook from people that have passed away. So obviously, there's no one managing their social media account. Do you have recommendations for that? Less legally-based recommendations, but I don't know, sensitivity-based recommendations about how to interact with your fans and followers?
[00:32:17] Michael: It's interesting, I actually ran into this when I was doing my own planning. So social media sites, if you read the terms of service for most of them, this is a vague generalization, but it's true for probably 90% of them. They explicitly do not a allow you to use the account of another person. So like Facebook, for example, it is against Facebook's terms to use another person's account or to allow another person to use your account.
[00:32:42] So when you pass, they basically give you a few options. The first option is, basically you could delete your account before you pass, so that way you don't have to worry about the birthday notifications. The second way is, under the table, you could have your heir log in and delete your account. Or you could do what's called the Memorialization Service. And when you memorialize your Facebook account, basically the heir notifies Facebook to let them know that you've passed away and then they basically change your account so that it looks like a memorial.
[00:33:14] So people can still post on your wall and pay their respects. And then the heir is the person that manages the day-to-day affairs of anything that can comes in with the account. If a social media website uses that, I would recommend that people take a hard look at that. That to me makes the most sense. That way you don't have to worry about getting the birthday notifications. They treat it sensitively.
[00:33:35] As far as other stuff, like last letters to readers, email newsletters to people, letting them know that you've passed, I think that's a conversation you should have with whoever is going to manage your affairs when you've passed away. So for example, how do you want announcements to go out, that you have passed away? Do you want someone to announce that on your newsletter, do you want someone to announce it on your YouTube channel? Maybe there is a close friend that can upload a video to your channel that announces it.
[00:34:07] Because don't forget, readers bond with you over your books and they're going to want to pay their respects and they're going to want to know that you've passed away and you should think about giving them a space to gather and pay their respects to you as well. And then also, there's newsletters and things like that. How do you use those? But I think every author is going to be unique and different because every author's platform is going to be different.
[00:34:30] Someone that has a podcast is going to probably go about this a lot differently than someone that has a YouTube channel or just an author that just has a regular Facebook page. So I don't think that there's a concrete cut and dry answer for everybody. But I just, I encourage people to really think about that. Think about how you can be thoughtful or how your heirs can be thoughtful about sharing the news with the world.
[00:34:54] Matty: And for a site like Facebook, is there a difference in how you treat it if it's a business page, as opposed to a personal profile? Would someone else be able to take over management of a business page where they would not be able to take over management of a personal profile?
[00:35:09] Michael: I don't know the direct answer to that. My understanding again, this is just based on my own research, but my understanding is that your business account is tied to your personal Facebook account. I don't think you can create just a business account on Facebook without having some sort of personal page attached to it. I could be wrong on that, because I'm not that deep into Facebook. If you can do that then, yeah, maybe there's a way you can pass business accounts to another person, that would be great. But my understanding of Facebook and knowing what I know about them, I don't know that you can do that.
[00:35:39] Matty: It would be interesting to find out, you know, I think a lot of small businesses use Facebook page as kind of a replacement for a website. Jane's Flowers or whatever. And if something happens to Jane, you would hope that Jane's assistant manager or whatever, it wouldn't just be locked out. But yeah, I see what you're saying about it being tied to a personal page. It does make it tricky.
[00:36:00] Michael: Yep, for sure.
[00:36:02] Matty: So unfortunately, scams are another thing that you need to talk about in the book. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Protecting Against Scammers
[00:36:08] Michael: Yeah, authors are magnets for scams. We have big dreams and there are bad guys out there that know that we'll do anything to achieve those dreams, even if it means parting with our hard-earned money. And I don't have to tell you, Matty, that there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there that prey on authors every day. I think the same will also be true with heirs.
[00:36:30] And I think the thing that heirs have going against them is the fact that, one, if you don't know what's going on, then you're way more susceptible to getting scammed. Because someone's going to come in and say, oh, we can help you do this and we can help you do that, and you won't have to spend any time. You can just sit back in your chair and get paid. And what heir wouldn't want to do that? Especially if they don't have an understanding that, maybe somebody's charging them $200 to do something that they can easily do with a mouse click, if they knew how to do it.
[00:37:00] And so that's why I wrote the AUTHOR HEIR HANDBOOK is to try to arm people with knowledge on, okay, here's what you should consider paying for. Here's what you can absolutely do yourself if you had just even a modicum of tech ability, like fixing a typo in a book, right? That if the author uses Vellum, it is as simple as going in Vellum, fixing the typo and clicking the Generate button, and then re-uploading the book. But not everyone's going to know that.
[00:37:27] And so I think that authors, while you're alive, you have a responsibility to educate the people who are going to take over your estate, to help them understand what a scam potentially will look like.
[00:37:39] Matty: I'm becoming fascinated with this idea of having this be a profession, not for me, but for somebody, especially because I'm experiencing a lot of my friends going through the period where their parents are getting old and passing on and they're having to deal with their estates. And in most cases, simpler is the what we're talking about here, because you don't have this ongoing sense of income earning potential.
[00:38:00] But it would be interesting even if an heir could find like a virtual assistant, because I would think a lot of the things that would need to be done, like they might say, oh, Vellum, ah, no, I can't. And someone who's familiar with Vellum would know that it's just as easy as you described, but this person has no really interest in learning a new software package, and that maybe they could find people within the author services community who would be able to help them through some of these mechanical or administrative things.
[00:38:27] Michael: Oh, absolutely. And again, it comes down to picking the right people and knowing when you're evaluating someone, if you're getting taken for a ride or if they're legitimate. And if you're an overwhelmed heir, just taking over an estate, you have no idea. Especially if the author was disorganized, you have no idea who you can trust. And I think it's going to be an unfortunate consequence of not being enough information out there about author estate planning.
[00:38:52] I hope I can help solve that a little bit, but I still think that just as authors are magnets for scams, heirs are going to be magnets for scams too, especially the same types of scams that authors fall for. So if there's some scammy literary award or something like that, that the author won in death and someone emails and says, oh, we would love to feature this. The same stuff that authors fall for is the same stuff that heirs could potentially fall for.
[00:39:16] Matty: Yeah.
[00:39:16] Michael: So I just think you have to be careful.
[00:39:18] Matty: Yeah, we should all have Writer Beware, like bookmarked on our computer.
[00:39:23] Michael: Agreed.
[00:39:23] Matty: Anytime one of those things comes in. So if somebody's listening to this and they're saying, oh my God, what is one thing?
The First Step to Take [00:39:30] Matty: If you just had to tell them one thing, they should do in order to start to pave the way toward a well-organized estate situation, what would it be?
[00:39:37] Michael: The one thing you can do today, if you don't have a will, fix that right now. Just fix that problem. Because it's kind of like Monopoly, do not pass, go do not collect $200. If you don't have a will, you're just not serious about this. You're just not serious about it. And the good thing about wills, is you can call an attorney and you can figure that out. And then you can figure that part out, you can read the section in the book that I talk about with wills. I tried to be as thorough and comprehensive as possible in terms of what people are typically doing and how an attorney will think about it and use that as a starting point for having a conversation with your attorney.
[00:40:17] And if you've got a good attorney, then they should be doing their due diligence to try to figure out how to understand you and your business. That's all to me, is always the mark of a good attorney is one that listens, and one that tries to find solutions for you instead of trying to shoehorn you into just a template.
[00:40:33] And so that would be the first thing I would do. If you have a will already, then I would recommend that you pull it out and you read it. And does it mention your copyrights? If it does, what does it say? And you might be horrified at what you read if you trusted your attorney to do it, and maybe they didn't do a good job. That's the first step, and then everything else flows naturally from there.
[00:40:55] Matty: Well Michael, once again, you're always a font of fabulous information. It's been so nice to have you back. Please let the listeners and viewers know where they can go to find out more about you and all you do online.
[00:41:07] Michael: Yeah. If you're interested in the AUTHOR ESTATE HANDBOOK, you can check that out at authorlevelup.com/estatehandbook, and it's got links to all the places where you can buy it. It's available in ebook and paperback. It's coming soon in large print. And then if you're interested in the AUTHOR HEIR HANDBOOK, not sure when you're listening to this, but it should be available in the next week or two. You can get that at authorlevelup.com/heirhandbook. And I am releasing a bundle with both books together.
[00:41:34] So why not pick up a book to take care of your author estate and then pick up the book for your spouse, the AUTHOR HEIR HANDBOOK, and slip that in your safe deposit box? So they have that when when you pass away, they can read it. All right, so you can find links to everything at the links I gave you at authorlevelup.com/estatehandbook or heirhandbook, and you'll be able to find links to the bundle there as well.
[00:41:55] Matty: Great, thank you so much, Michael.
[00:41:57] Michael: Thanks, Matty.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Michael! What action item are you taking to ensure your estate provides value—and not headaches—for your heirs?
I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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Links
https://www.youtube.com/authorlevelup
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellaronn/
https://twitter.com/michaellaronn
https://www.facebook.com/michael.laronn
Other episodes with Michael La Ronn:
Episode 096 - Emerging Tech for the Writing Craft
Episode 090 - Bringing a Creative Endeavor to an End
Episode 055 - The Costs of Self-publishing a Book
Episode 082 - Perspectives on Writer's Block
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaellaronn/
https://twitter.com/michaellaronn
https://www.facebook.com/michael.laronn
Other episodes with Michael La Ronn:
Episode 096 - Emerging Tech for the Writing Craft
Episode 090 - Bringing a Creative Endeavor to an End
Episode 055 - The Costs of Self-publishing a Book
Episode 082 - Perspectives on Writer's Block
For links to Matty's upcoming and recent events, click here.
