Position:Home>Books & Authors> How long does it take for a copyright to go into affect?

Your book is already copyrighted!. According to the most revisions in the copyright laws, a copyright is implied and goes into effect the minute you write something!. As long as you don't post it on the internet, you hold the copyrights!. But the moment you post online, all bets are off!. There is no such thing as The Copyright Police!. There is nobody to protect and defend your rights!. You will have to hire a very expensive attorney and odds are you will fail to protect your work!. Publishers are not interested in work previously posted online!. MUCH too likely it has been plagiarized!. So avoid the "How do you like my prologue!?" type of posts and save your work!.

Sending away for a copyright is very amateur and nothing makes publishers and agents more annoyed with an author!. It says "I want you to help me publish my book, but I don't trust you!." That is just absurd!. If you do your homework and check out the publisher or agent through the standard Writer Beware channels before you send anything out, there is ZERO chance of your work being stolen!. A legitimate publisher or agent has no interest in stealing your work!. They are only interested in representing it!.

If you are going to portray yourself as a writer, you need to act professionally, and that includes following standard procedures!. If and when you manage to sell your book, it will undergo many revisions before it is ready to print!. Once you sign a Standard Author's Contract, those revisions are totally out of your control!. You sign away those rights!. And every time a single word in a document is changed, the copyright is void because it is no longer the same work!. When everything is done and you have read and approved your galley for press, according to a standard contract, the publisher will obtain proper copyrights for you at their expense!.

Now, I have one other word for you!. Sending your manuscript to a publisher!. DON"T!. Again, if you don't follow proper procedures, you will be branded as an amateur and dismissed!. Publishers do not want your manuscript until they ask for it!. What they want from you generally is a query letter and a synopsis!. Each individual publisher has a set of guidelines and you MUST follow them to the letter!. If they are interested after reading your query, they will request either a full or partial manuscript and most likely a book proposal!. That is the most important document you will ever write!. There are books that teach you how to write them!. You need to get one and start learning!. It is your #1 sales tool for your book and it is a very complex document!.

also remember that you cannot approach the top ten publishers yourself!. They do not accept unsolicited queries!. Anything you send to them will just be discarded!. If you want to deal directly with a publisher, go to Writers Market, find some small publishers reading work in your genre and send what they ask for in their guidelines and nothing more!. And remember - no fancy stamps or perfumed envelopes!. Professional!. Always!.

Hope that helps!. Pax-C

PS And for the love of Mike, PLEASE ignore people who tell you that the so called "Poor Man's Copyright" where you put your work in an envelope and mail it to yourself is safe!. You would be laughed out of court!. It means nothing except that on a certain date, you were in possession of certain pages!. It does NOT prove you are the author of them!. I could mail myself a copy of Old Man and the Sea, but it doesn't make me Hemingway!. Save your 42 cent stamp!. It is totally worthless as a method of protecting work!. I say that here 15 times a day and yet people still post and recommend it!. Ladies and gentlemen - it is an Urban Myth!. Means absolutely zero!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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No one can steal your book and legally get away with it because it has not been copyrighted!. Anyone who stole your effort would still be committing theft and you could sue!. I would not worry about this; it almost never happens!.

All that copyright does is to say formally that you claim you created something by a certain date!. Protection starts when the copyright office receives your material and files it!. However, this is unnecessary and inadvisable!.

If you want to assert ownership and create some form of proof of it with a date, mail a sealed copy of your manuscript to yourself and have the post office stamp the closure of the envelope as well as the stamps with a date!. Don't open the package!. Use it only in case of a trial!.

Sending to a publisher with a copyright notice is the sign of an amateur!. It is also vaguely insulting since it implies that you believe that the publisher might purloin your work!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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