George Angus, Tumblemoose Writer

Hello, faithful reader.  I’m fortunate to have a guest post from my friend Paul Lalley over at webwordslinger.com (And you’ve just got to love that name!)

If you wrote it, you own it. Simple.

You can copyright your words simply by putting a © symbol on everything you sell. Important? Let’s put it this way, when you sell the copyright, you sell the deed to the farm.

What is a copyright?

Copyright is an indication of ownership. The owner of an intellectual property (IP) owns the copyright. A copyright can be sold over and over, again, because it represents ownership of a property – just like a house or a car, only in this case, copyright shows you own what you wrote.

Technically, to acquire copyright protection under federal law you have to submit two copies of every piece you write to the Library of Congress but in this age, where content is generated by the pound, few writers actually take the time to obtain a federal copyright. By the time you receive it, your article is already dusty.

One solution is to copyright all content you post to a blog or website, for example. As long as it’s your blog or site, you can copyright all content. But we’re talking about the wild, wild web, here, and frankly, if someone wants to pirate your copyrighted content there isn’t much you can do about it.

I found one of my syndicated pieces on a site based in the Philippines. The site owner had taken one of my articles and plugged in his keywords – Viagra, blue pill, penis enlarger – in-between my eloquently crafted text.

I contacted the site owner, asked him to take it down. Nothing. So, I called my lawyer who explained that I’d have to sue the guy 12 times zones to the east, I’d have to hire a lawyer up on IP law in that island nation and, in that time, if the site owner took down my keyword-raped piece, I had no case.

In the end, it wasn’t worth the hassle or expense. Beside, the site owner wouldn’t have the money to pay the fine any way.

Publishing your copyrighted work

A large piece – an e-book or POD text should be filed with the feds, though again, the web is global and international copyright law is, well, let’s just say enforcement is lax.

If some unscrupulous site owner in Mumbai wants to rip you off, what’cha gonna do? You’re pretty much helpless.

However, if you find a publisher interested in using your piece on its blog, in its print mag or, you find a publisher who wants to publish your bio-epic, it’s time to get down to rights negotiation.

Your objective? Keep as many rights to your piece as possible. What does that mean? Well, use rights can be sliced as thin as baloney: North American rights, Asian distribution rights, institutional rights, one-time serial rights, large-print book rights, audio book rights – the list is endless. But remember this one critical point: if you sell the copyright to anyone – an individual site owner, a publisher, a work-for-hire buyer – you lose all control of what happens to that text.

So, if a blogger wants you to post, you grant one-time serial rights. The piece can appear on that one site for a pre-determined length of time. If a publisher wants to publish your mystery novel, chances are they expect copyright ownership. Oops. When you sell the copyright, expect to see 10% to 15% on net sales of your book, and there’s no guarantee or incentive for the publisher to push the book.

On the other hand, if you maintain copyright ownership, the publisher becomes a book dealer. You’re the publisher. In this case, expect to see between 40% and 50% return on your work depending on who handles manufacture of inventory and order fulfillment.

Publishing Risk

Copyright ownership comes down to publishing risk.

If a publisher agrees to put your printed novel in their catalog, the only risk they assume is the space your book description takes up in the catalog or on the bookseller’s website. You’ve taken all the risk by investing time in writing the book and cash in having 500 copies of the whodunit printed in Hong Kong.

The split between dealer and author, or publisher and author, should be based on which party has assumed the most risk. If a publisher takes your rough manuscript, runs it through the in-house editing process, prints up 500,000 4-color hardbound copies – then the publisher has a right to expect a larger slice of the pie.

On the other hand, if all the risk is on your shoulders, you’re in the driver’s seat. Publishers will be more interested in taking a title that already exists and is already in print. No risk, some upside potential.

So don’t sell the farm to see your name in print. Hold on to the copyright like you’d hold on to a deed because both show proof of ownership. And as your catalog of titles grows, so do your intellectual property assets.

So create something of value. Then protect it with a little ©. After all, it is your baby.