Back when I started this blog I really didn’t know what information would prove to be most useful to today’s self-publishers, or what would be the most popular.
A couple of months in, once I had paused long enough to figure out Google’s Analytics program and dig into the numbers a bit, I was pretty surprised at what I found:
An article I had written on what should be on your book’s copyright page was the most popular page on my blog. Copyright? In the 1990s Jill and I had run our own publishing company, and I had gotten used to dealing with copyright issues. With a few exceptions, copyright wasn’t a very interesting topic. You filed the papers, paid the fee and printed the notice. That was about it.
So why were so many people visiting this simple blog post? Uncertainty.
Confronting the Copyright Myths
I say uncertaintly because I soon realized that there are a lot of myths, uncertainties, untruths and fantasies that writers have about copyright. But it’s not really about copyright, it’s about their own relationship with the material they’ve created.
Writing a book is no small achievement. And by a book, I mean a long work that is sufficiently developed to hold together as a complete work, not just an assembly of individual parts. A persistent fear that authors have expressed to me is that someone will “steal” their ideas, make off with all the work, effort and dedication they’ve poured into their book.
On the other side, there were an equal number of misconceptions about how you could use other people’s work, especially works you find on the internet. The whole concept of fair use was wildly misinterpreted to mean “the use I’m making of it” and not much else.
So I started writing articles about copyright, the copyright page, copyright myths, how to copyright. I was fortunate to enlist David Amkraut, an intellectual property lawyer, to write an article clearing up the misconceptions about fair use, and to answer people’s questions that arose from the article.
Copyright Articles Conveniently Together
I’ve gathered all these articles together and created a report you can download. I call it the Self-Publisher’s Quick Guide to Copyright. Here’s what’s in it:
- Self-Publishing Basics: A 5-Minute Guide to Copyright—What copyright is, and what it isn’t
- Self-Publishing Basics: The Copyright Page—What should be on your copyright page
- What Every Writer Ought to Know about Fair Use and Copyright—How to understand and make use of fair use provisions
- Top 10 Myths, Lies and Misinformation about Copyright—Mistakes, misconceptions and myths about copyright
- Copyright Page Samples You Can Copy and Paste Into Your Book—A long and a short copyright page to drop into your book
- How to Copyright Your Book—How to go about registering your copyright
Photo: Big Stock Photo
Now you can get this convenient report instantly. Click here for complete information and instant download.
