By Susan Spann

For the past few months, my guest posts here at Writers in the Storm have taken a look at different aspects of the author estate plan. This month, we’ll finish the series with a problem every author faces: selecting the heirs.

In some cases, choosing who will inherit an author’s copyrights isn’t difficult – for example, when the author has a spouse but no children, children but no spouse, or simply wants to leave the estate to charity. For most of us, however, inheritance issues require at least a little thought.

Let’s take a look at some of the available options you might–or might not—have already considered:

1.         One heir, one copyright – splitting the works. When heirs don’t get along, authors sometimes consider splitting copyright ownership by leaving each heirs full ownership of a different copyright. A spouse might receive some of the works, and…