Panelist, "Legal Issues for Writers 101," Independent Writers of Southern California, Culver City, Calif.

What do writers need to know about contracts? Or Intellectual Property? How about collaborations between authors? Turns out, there’s a lot of legal issues that writers and self-publishers should be aware of. Some of the topics discussed were:

• Book and film/TV contract law — the basics
• Bad literary agents — how to tell incompetent/scam agents from good ones
• Editing services — the good and the bad
• Legitimate POD (print-on-demand) and self-publishing businesses versus fraudulent “vanity publishing” houses
• How to protect your ideas — and avoid idea theft!
• Age, gender, and racial discrimination basics