If I wrote an autobiography and published it on amazon then...

[coodawoodashooda]

How do I avoid being sued? No mention of names, is that enough?

Where you might come unstuck is that even with names changed, there might be enough information for 'characters' to be identified or to identify themselves. The only way around that is going to be to change the scenarios so much that it's no longer accurate or factual. It's a lot easier if you actually have the consent of those people to use situations they were involved in.

A pen name won’t stop you getting sued. There will always be a trail leading to you. If you sell through Amazon for example there will be bank accounts that will lead right to you.

My friend did this, not an autobiography but referenced someone else and other people. She had a publishing company who went through everything with a fine toothcomb.

The kind that thinks something can be ‘very unique’

@Sotornjay7

My story is very unique (the words of my agent)

I’d be wary of an agent who used the term ‘very unique’ tbh.

@QueenOfThorns

You beat me to it!

But those aren’t ‘autobiographies’ — ‘Call the Midwife’ is popular social history about a specific job in a specific time and place, written specifically in response to an article in a midwifery journal calling for a midwife’s version of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small. And it does a replication of that very well — same life and death, varied patients and colleagues, vivid depiction of time and place, same gentle period charm etc. same obvious adaptability for tv.

This Is Going to Hurt is based on diaries of AK’s time as a medical student, again not an autobiography. It taps into the huge popular interest in medical stuff, as testified by so many mainstream tv series from House and Grey’s Anatomy to Casualty and all those A and E/ambulance programmes, and AK was an established comedy screenwriter before he wrote it. Again, a very safe bet for an agent and publisher.

I wouldn’t call either an example of an unknown whose ordinary life was snapped up in autobiography form. A better example would be someone like Raynor Winn, whose The Salt Path became a best seller, but that was largely because the set-up was unusual and compelling — middle-aged couple with young adult children evicted from their farm and become homeless overnight at the same time as one of them is diagnosed with a degenerative terminal illness so they decide to walk the 630 miles of the south-west coastal path carrying only what fitted into their rucksacks, wild-camping and often hungry.

Indeed.

Just write a book of fiction based on your life embellish bits, set it in a different place, time etc. Build in random characters that enhance the storylines but also divert them away from the real life truths. In essence get what you want to say out but in a more fictitious way so as it’s not identifiable. You could even write a series splitting the bits you want to say about your life bit by bit.

Aren't Adam Kaye and Jennifer Worth's book more of a social commentary as well though, plus humour in Adam Kaye's case. They're not just autobiographical.

Oh yes Raynor Wynn - that was more autobiography I agree. Unusual though I'd have thought.

If the people you are writing about are identifiable, then the fact that you've given them a different name is irrelevant. For instance, if I were to write about people I work with but give them different names, there's a decent chance that other people at that company would recognise who I was talking about, potentially so could other people who deal with those individuals. So if I wrote something defamatory I could certainly be sued.

If you use a pseudonym, you could still be traced through Amazon and indeed who you are might be obvious from what you wrote.

If they thought or knew you couldn't prove it they might still sue on the grounds that what you have said points to them. They might feel they have nothing to lose if your book identifies them, even if there's a process of deduction involved.

Have those agents actually interested a publisher? I hope they're not asking you to pay towards publishing costs.

@QueenOfThorns @Corcomroe

Good morning you little rays of sunshine.

How your comments made me smile, I do like it when people try to belittle me especially when they have NO idea. I sense jealousy and wonder why you are in this thread.

As let the Oxford dictionary unique is to be one of its kind, unlike anything else. Unless you know my story you would only assume that I could not possible be unique well the readers will be able to judge that!

Please do your own research around publishing agents I wish to waste no time explaining.

@Rosula I am paying NO costs made that clear from the beginning. I have a meeting next week with a publisher and awaiting another’s reply.

I shall not be replying to anymore negative comments not aimed at you @Rosula as I have more important things to occupy my time.

I think what pps are getting at with 'very unique' is that it's not possible in a linguistic sense. Something either is, or is not, unique. It can't be 'very unique'. It's either one of a kind or it's not. Unless a book is a word for word reproduction of another book, all books are unique.

It's not possible to be very unique, it's either unique or it is not.

No jealousy here, published author who also has never heard of a publishing agent and is very surprised that any publisher would look at an unfinished ms by an unknown.

I like reading memoirs of ordinary people.

I've read various job related ones - a GP, a health visitor, call the midwife, another midwife one, a teacher, a social worker, the doctor at Heathrow airport, a vet.

And some experience ones - there is a lovely little trilogy from a woman who bought a narrowboat despite no previous experience.

I like the foster care memoirs although I suspect they are at least half fiction.

A relative of mine wrote an abuse memoir and I found it by chance and recognised everyone immediately, it was extremely uncomfortable so I made myself stop reading. Apparently she gave a copy to my mum and she found the same. I have great sympathy for what she went through, but it's too close and I would never be able to un-read it.

Another relative wrote an account of her time as a land army girl during the war. That was a really interesting read.

The problem with trying to make a 'misery memoir' into a novel is that misery memoirs are only compelling because the events actually happened - there is shock interest in the levels of adversity and a sense of reward and inspiration that the author has survived the events and, usually, made something of their life despite terrible odds.

Anyone with reasonable writing ability and an imagination could write a novel describing a life of terrible abuse and hardship, but without the element of truth, no one would be interested, apart perhaps from disturbed individuals who 'get off' on abuse descriptions.

If genuine abuse and hardship is presented wholly as fiction, it won't work - unless it is the backdrop to a plot-driven novel, or the prose itself is of exceptional literary merit.

I learned about this when I did my law degree. I never finished it so like to pass on the expensive nuggets!

So for defamation to be claimed you don't have to mention a name. If it can be ascertained who you are talking about it's still defamation.

very unique = no such thing. It is unique.

Sotornjay7 I know of literary agents (UK) but not of publishing agents. Am interested to learn where to find them.

Truth is a valid defense.

You turn it into a fiction novel, combine characters and situations, and publish it under a pen name. :) OR you ONLY say positive things about people.

@medianewbie
this is very helpful, thank you x

Thank you for your acknowledgment. Would perhaps have been nice if I had had the courtesy of an acknowledgment from @coodawoodashooda who I was trying to help by answering their question.

I'm not bitter (!) but it is very irritating if you waste your time providing sensible and correct information that otherwise people would have to pay for and not only do you not get a thank you but you don't even get an acknowledgment that it has been read by the OP. I think its rude and it puts me off posting in reply to these kind of questions tbh.