: Confidentiality Concerns I have recently joined a writers group, and one person has asked to read my entire book. She is lovely, but I am concerned about letting my "baby" go and possibly

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I would suggest asking this person to sign an Non Disclosure Agreement to begin with. This will give you at least some form of legal recourse should you find your work copied.

I may sound a little paranoid, but I would also suggest that you alter a small amount of the content to make it a unique iteration of the book. If you then send yourself a copy of this, and you find it published elsewhere, it will make finding the perp a little easier. In the same way that some websites have false contacts that exist in order to catch web scrapers.

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I suppose the easiest thing would be to give her just part of the book, without going into any big deal about not trusting her. Like just way, "Well, I really need to do some rework on the second half of the book before I want anyone else to see it. But I'm happy to show you the first four chapters. I'd love to hear any comments you may have."

But really, I think the bigger issue is: Beginning writers often get really paranoid about someone stealing their work. I'd say: quit worrying that much about it. Yes, it's possible that if you gave this woman a copy of your book to proofread, she would promptly change the title and the author name and submit it to a publisher as her own. Possible, but not very likely. As a beginning writer myself, I worry a lot more about writing something good enough that anybody would want to steal it.

With friends and professional publishing companies, I would worry pretty much not at all. With someone who is practically a random stranger like this, maybe some concern and precautions are justified, but I wouldn't go crazy about it.

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I wouldn't personally feel comfortable with that, especially if you don't know her well, which I'm gathering is the case since you said you'd only joined the group recently.

I think Tave's suggestion is good. If you do allow her to read parts of your book, you could always get her to sign a NDA or some contract specifying copyright etc.

You have to think about what you will get out of it. Is she a published writer? If so, have you read any of her work? Do you like it? Does she intend to give you feedback or is she just curious?

I think being slightly paranoid is appropriate in this case, especially if you don't know the person that well. Don't ever feel obliged to do what you don't want to out of fear of offending. You have to trust your gut. I think that the fact that you are asking the questions suggests you're not 100% comfortable with the idea. Your instinct is really important.

Having said that CKmum is right that getting other people's feedback can be useful and can push your work along, so taking basic security measures can give you peace of mind with that.

I'm currently finishing my first novel and unless I knew the person very well, I wouldn't give my whole book over to read--perhaps a chapter or two at the most. If I hired a proofreader, I'd prepare a contract for them to sign first.

Good luck.

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Why don't you offer her a few chapters saying that you want to see if she likes it? Then, if she comes back with useful comments, let her see more.

Making a pdf and sending it to yourself by email can't hurt, just in case.

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There is always a risk of copy being made (some outright, some "mashed up"). But you'll need proofreaders. You'll need some peer reviews to be able to attract good quality readers / publishers.

Some basic measures must be taken though - like distributing protected electronic versions, delivering parts of book rather than whole book, etc. All said, a bit of intuition helps.

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