Every reason you might not hire me, answered.

"It's too expensive."

Your book exists to generate business. One speaking gig it books can pay for the review. One defamation suit it triggers can run up serious defense fees before anyone reaches a verdict, and that's the version where you win. You're comparing a flat fee, $9,500 for books with elevated legal risk or $6,500 for standard risk, against the wrong number. And if you want to know your risk before you commit, a Risk Review starts at $5,000 and counts toward Clearance if you upgrade within 60 days.

"I don't know if I even need this."

Does your book name living people? Describe anyone's crimes, affairs, health, or finances? Discuss a former employer or business partner? Did you sign a settlement, NDA, or separation agreement in the last 20 years? Quote song lyrics or reprint anyone's letters or photos? Score 2+ and the manuscript needs a legal read.

Run the 12-question Risk Scorecard and let the manuscript answer for itself.

"You'll make me gut my story."

The job is the opposite: keep the story and remove the liability. Most fixes are surgical. An attribution added, an opinion framed as opinion, a detail that identifies without adding meaning cut, a composite documented. Your Gameplan gives you the legal analysis, your options, and suggested language where it helps, so you see the ways through and you choose the words. Precise, verifiable writing reads as more credible, and that usually makes the chapter hit harder.

"I'll just run it through AI myself."

You can. Here’s why it carries risks that don’t apply when your lawyer uses technology on your behalf. 1) Privilege. What you type into a consumer chatbot about the risky parts of your book is generally not privileged and may be discoverable if you’re ever sued. Work your lawyer does to advise you, including with technology, is protected as far as the law allows. 2) The record it leaves. A chat log asking “could I get sued over chapter seven?” followed by publishing chapter seven unchanged could be used to argue you knew about a risk and published anyway. 3) Judgment. A chatbot doesn’t know your contracts, the people you wrote about, or how a court where they live would treat a given passage. It can sound certain and still be wrong, even about the law it cites. 4) Accountability. No one answers for a chatbot’s advice, and depending on your settings, what you paste in may be stored or used to train the model. When I use technology, it runs under my supervision, on terms that don’t allow your manuscript to be used for training, and I make every legal judgment myself.

"My friend's a lawyer, she'll look at it."

Is she a publishing lawyer? Defamation, privacy, right of publicity, fair use, and publisher indemnity clauses are a specialty, the way you wouldn't ask a real estate lawyer to handle your surgery-gone-wrong case. And a favor comes with no Gameplan, no follow-up review, and an awkward conversation if she misses something. Free advice is worth what it costs to enforce.

"My publisher's lawyers will review it anyway."

They will, and read your contract to see who they work for. The publisher's lawyer protects the publisher. Your indemnification clause almost certainly says that if the book draws a claim, you reimburse the house, its defense costs included. Their legal read decides whether the publisher's risk is acceptable to the publisher. Mine decides whether your risk is acceptable to you, and can make their review faster, because the manuscript arrives with the questions already answered and a Clearance Letter you can share.

"Nobody in my book would actually sue me."

The person you wrote about will read their chapter first and remember it longest. And suing is only one lever. A cease-and-desist letter to your publisher can freeze your launch even when the claim is weak, because publishers pull first and ask questions later. Clearance exists so that if that letter arrives, you and your publisher answer it from a reviewed manuscript and an organized file, instead of starting from zero.

"If someone complains, I'll just fix it in the next printing."

The next printing is the cheap part. The current inventory is the expensive part: books already printed get pulled from warehouses and retailers, destroyed, and reprinted at your publisher's cost, which your indemnity clause routes back to you. Meanwhile the recall itself becomes the story, your launch window closes, retailers deprioritize the title, and your next book gets a harder look from every acquiring editor who searches your name. Post-publication fixes are triage. Clearance is how you fix it before it's printed.

"I don't care if I get sued. Truth is a defense."

Truth you can prove is a defense. Truth you remember is a lawsuit. The burden realities are brutal: you'll need documents and witnesses for statements you made about events from fifteen years ago, at deposition, under oath, at your defense counsel's hourly rate. And truth defends only defamation. It does nothing against invasion of privacy, where the claim is that the true thing was private. Your Gameplan names the documents that back up each statement you keep, precisely because "it's true" only wins when it's organized and provable.

"This will slow down my launch."

We set your start date and anticipated delivery date together after your consultation and confirm them in writing when you sign, so you can plan your launch around them. A publisher's legal review of an unvetted manuscript, with rounds of author queries, often takes longer than a review done up front, because the manuscript arrives with the questions already answered.

"I'll just buy media liability insurance instead."

Read the application. Media liability applications often ask whether the manuscript had a pre-publication legal review, and a claim on an unvetted book can invite a coverage fight. Clearance and insurance work best in sequence, with clearance first. Your Clearance Letter is the document to share with your broker. The Gameplan is privileged, so check with me before sharing it.