My book is about a theory that is based upon existing theories and recent experiments in biology. Since biology is not my main field, and since my theory is interesting to the general public, I self-published my book.
The response to my book has been good.
But now I am afraid because I have described several mainstream biological experiments in my book, which although I accessed through my institution, and are not in the public domain. I was careful to cite the original research and describe results in a short, non technical way, in my own words. I also included several graphs in my book that I drew myself in a qualitative way, based upon the diagrams of the research papers.
So, can there be any legal issues with my book? A friend of mine is suggesting that I need to get permission from publishers of the research papers before describing the content of their papers, because I used their material for commercial purpose (to write my book).
I must clarify that the experiments that I have described are only a part of my book, about 20%, and the rest of the book uses the experiments to develop a semi-original biological theory of my own. I needed to describe the experiments to let the readers know the basis of my arguments.