Copyright Tips

Hello, to all my Indie Author friends, and anyone looking to publish their work. I thought I would share my copyright experience with you. Maybe you already know this, and I’m the last to get on board after publishing three books, but this is my experience and I hope it helps.

When you apply for a copyright, and you choose “unpublished” and upload your manuscript – you will get a certificate. If you choose “published” – you are required to send in two published copies of your work, with me so far? Both are copyrighted, so, what is the different?

– If you choose to copyright as “unpublished” and someone plagiarizes your work, you take them to court and win, your attorney fees are your responsibility.

– If you choose to copyright as “published” and someone plagiarizes your work, you take them to court and win, the guilty party is responsible for your attorney fees.

– You can copyright both ways, but you will have to pay twice. Unless you copyright the unpublished work, but change your mind, and want to copyright the published work, and they (copyright office) have not completed your application they will allow you one change without payment…so don’t waste too much time deciding, or it could cost you.

So, there you have it. Either copyright will hold up in a court of law, but to protect your pocketbook a bit, you might want to be sure and copyright your published work. Plagiarizing is a real threat to anyone who strings words together to create a piece of art. As starving (at least some of us) artists, it’s important to protect what we have created and make these thieves pay for any wrongdoing.

Until next time…happy reading, happy writing, happy life…