My daughter is interested in self-publishing her own book. I’ve been checking out CreateSpace and am not sure if it is available to minors. Do you know?
CreateSpace (a division of Amazon) offers a great service to get self-published books in print! Good for your daughter.
Unfortunately, CreateSpace does put up some roadblocks for teenagers.
Here’s the experience of one dad:
https://www.createspace.com/en/community/message/69077
CreateSpace allowed his teenage son to write a book, but required that royalty payments to go to the father’s name. Dad didn’t like this because it made his taxes go up.
The problem is that CreateSpace doesn’t want to enter into an agreement (i.e. the royalty agreement) with minors.
Why not?
The laws of most states set the age for entering into a legally binding contract at 18. It’s not illegal to enter into a contract with a minor — just ill-advised, because a minor can avoid obligations created under the contract (i.e., back out of it) until he/she reaches majority age.
So, help your daughter out and encourage her to self-publish her book. Here’s how you can deal with the royalty payments:
How to deal with royalty payments to a parent, not the teenager
Hope that helps. Good luck!
Carol Topp, CPA
