Using music lyrics in your book? Be prepared to pay

I’ve used music lyrics twice in books. It’s likely I won’t again. For Circles of Confusion, I paid $750 to have someone sing the lyrics from “Layla” in the shower. For that price, I feel like I should be allowed to spend an evening with Eric Clapton. What can I say, it was my first book, I was sure I would soon be rich.

For Learning to Fly, I paid $125 to use Tom Petty’s part of Learning to FLy after explaining it would come out of my pocket.

In both cases, they wanted to see the pages where it occurred. I would assume so the serial killer is not humming their song while he strangles kittens.

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Using music lyrics in your book? Be prepared to pay

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