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After you have spent hours, days, weeks, months, or even years–the last thing you want to happen is for someone to come along and steal your work and redistribute it or copy it.

Copyright infringement is a big deal all over the world. Some companies, writers, and artists lose millions by having their work stolen or redistributed illegally.

Thankfully, there are national and international laws that are in place to help protect your work. So while you may run into a situation where someone infringes your copyright, you do have direct protection and legal options to ensure your work & rights are preserved.

In this article, I will explain how to copyright you work, and other basics about copyrighting. This will mostly deal with the Unites States copyright laws, although many things will apply to international copyrights as well.

Do You Have To Copyright Your Work at All?

Surprisingly, you do not have to even register your work with the US copyright office to have copyright protection. The law clearly indicates that as soon as the work is finished, you own the copyright, and therefore, have copyright protection. So as soon as you are done with your self published book or eBook, you automatically have copyright protection.

Not registering a copyright officially may be the best thing for certain publishing mediums where it would be impractical to attempt to copyright something (such as a website, eBook you will distribute for free, etc.). Instead, you can simply publish and distribute your work at your will, and you still have protection.

Should You Copyright Your Work At All?

While the law clearly provides protection for your copyrighted work even if you don’t register it with the copyright office, it may be a very good idea in many cases. For example, if you really spend a lot of time on your work, and want to ensure you get full protection (and suspect you may get infringed and have to later bring a lawsuit), I would highly recommend registering you work.

Registering your work can provide substantial benefit, and I would recommend anyone seeking to sell or distribute their work on a large scale to do so. Some of the benefits of taking the time and money to register your copyright include:

1. It gives you a much better case in a court of law if someone later tries to infringe your copyright. This way, you have a clear record of proof of your publishing/registration date. This will help to ensure your work is protected, and you are much more likely to win cases of infringement.
2. It makes you work appear more professional.
3. It gives you peace of mind to know that you have legally protected your work, and also can freely sell or distribute it at this point, and more.
4. The law states that there is a mandatory deposit requirement when you publish a work. You are supposed to submit a copy of the published work within 3 months of completion. If you register your work, you can do all of this together.

So while you may not have to register your copyright protection in all cases, it may definitely be beneficial to do so in some instances. Again, if you plan to publish an eBook or real book, I would highly recommend you take the time to register it.

How Do You Register for Copyright on eBooks or Self Published Books?

If you live in the United States, you can register for copyright protection via the internet or mail. The copyright office has a great website, and you can find loads more information about what copyright protection includes, how long copyrights last, registration requirements, and much more.

The general fee ranges from about $35-200, depending on whether or not you take advantage of any copyright searches or other services.

A Few Other Words on Copyrighting Work

Another thing you want to beware of is that while you may totally come up with the writing yourself, you must ensure that someone else hasn’t written a similar work that is still under copyright protection first.

It may surprise you that someone out in the world may very well have written a book very similar to yours. You may share similar ideas, phrasing, and so forth. This can happen even if you have never even read their work (or vise versa).

So it may be beneficial to do a quick search in the library of congress to ensure you aren’t using a copyrighted title, phrase, etc. It would also be a good idea to ensure that your work isn’t too similar to someone else’s. Again, it may seem unrealistic to you, but I can assure you it happens. There are billions of people in this world, and more than one may have used the title, “How to make money online,” or “How to cook.”

Conclusion: To Copyright or Not to Copyright? That is the Self Published Question

I think the most important issues to consider are what your ultimate goals are, and whether or not you feel your copyright may be infringed (and if it would bother you or financially harm you if it was).

If you are creating a simple eBook to distribute for free, you may want to pass on the copyright registration process. In this case, it may be an unnecessary expense and waste of time.

If, however, you plan on selling your eBook or self published book, I would highly recommend you take the time to actually register it. This way, you will feel more professional, have a strong legal record of your copyright, and be able to defend your work in a court of law.

Again, you can find great information, and even register your work at the US copyright website.

In this next chapter, I will discuss what an ISBN is, and if you will need an ISBN in addition to registering a copyright.

Chapter 8: What is an ISBN, and Do You Need One?

Posted under Write an eBook, eBooks

Before you actually convert your eBook into a finished PDF (or other format) document, it is always a good idea to have these things done:

1. Have you proofread your guide several times & used spell check?
2. Have you let a friend or professional edit or proofread your guide for errors?
3. Have you inserted all links, disclosures, images, and references?
4. Have you inserted your cover graphic on the very first page (optional)?
5. Are you comfortable with distributing as is at this point?

If you answered “yes” to all of those questions, then you should be ready to finish your eBook guide and convert it into a finished product.

Which File Format Is Best for eBooks? PDF? Mobipocket Format? Website?

The type of file format you want to use depends exlusively on your personal preference, and where (or how) you plan on distributing your work. If you plan to market and sell this eBook from your own website, then you definitely want to use PDF format. The same applies to any eBooks you want to publish via sales channels such as Clickbank.net, eBay.com, Craigslist.org, CreateSpace.com, Lulu.com, and others.

Also, I should briefly mention that you always have the option to publish your eBook via a website. To do this, you would generally want to just write the entire thing using the website/blog software you use. You can use a spreadsheet for spell check, grammar, and so forth. But eventually you will want to copy that into the site. This would be considered in “HTML” format. This is only recommended for those who want to publish for free on their sites (like this guide you are reading now).

Anyway, back to the topic. PDF format is the preferred format in almost all situations. Why? Almost every computer comes with a PDF reader, and if not, they are freely available. This ensures that this standard format will be able to be viewed by almost any computer. That is a huge issue. You don’t want to write it in .Doc format because not everyone has Microsoft Word (or Open Office).

The other notable file format would be the Mobipocket format I mentioned above. This is only recommended if you plan to sell via the Mobipocket site. The good news is that they even allow you to convert your PDF to mobipocket format. So again, I would recommend PDF in almost every situation (unless you want it free on your site as content). For information on how to convert PDF to mobipocket, click here.

How to Convert an eBook to PDF Format for Free

If you are using Open Office to write your eBook (recommended if you do not have Microsoft Word), then you can easily convert your document as soon as you are done. Here are the brief steps to convert your document into a finished PDF version:

1. Click on the “FILE” button in the upper left-hand corner of the Open Office Writer Document.
2. Select the “EXPORT AS PDF” option.
3. This will cause a small window to pop up. You can then select the security settings, any possible encryptions, and also make any last minute formatting adjustments.
4. When you are done making your final adjustments, encryptions, and settings, select the “EXPORT” button on the bottom of the small window pane.
5. You will then be asked where you want to save your PDF, and also you will need to name it. I suggest you save it to your desktop (or a special folder) so you can easily find it. Make sure to name it something appropriate. Remember, your readers will see the name you saved it under (so you may not want to use, “cool-guy-99.”

Yes, it is literally that easy! Once you click the “save” button, Open Office will then convert your document to a finished PDF guide.  You can keep this on your computer, and then it will be ready to upload and sell when you get to that point.

If you use another program (such as Microsoft Word), the process should be very similar. Newer versions of Microsoft Word (2007 and beyond) also have a built in PDF converting feature. So the entire process should be almost identical.

If you are using an older program that doesn’t have a built in PDF convert feature, you can always import it into the free Open Office program. Or you could download one of the various free PDF converters available online. Adobe.com also even allows a limited number of free online PDF conversions.

Final Thoughts on Converting Your PDF eBook

I would also like to stress a few things you want to be sure to do at this point. First, you absolutely want to ensure you backup your work. Burn the disk to a CD, jump drive, or backup hard drive. You don’t want to lose your work. I would also recommend you make a backup periodically as you are writing your eBook as well. Can you imagine your hard drive dying while writing a book, and losing everything? Yikes!

You also want to make sure that you take advantage of the encryption/password/security features that are available when you go to convert your finished work. This ensures that people will not be able to easily copy or edit your guide. Of course, if they do this it would be an infringement of your copyright and would be illegal, but you shouldn’t make it easy for them to do so. You wouldn’t leave your car doors unlocked in a bad neighborhood would you? I hope not. So don’t leave  your PDF open for thieves to copy.

Also, at this point your PDF is technically “finished.” However, you can always add any new edits or information to the original document, and then convert it again to PDF instantly if the need or desire arises. So I would highly recommend you keep the original for editing purposes (and back it up too). Especially if you ever wanted to go back and add your ISBN or other information you may later want to share.

People often add revisions as information, dates, references, or hyperlinks become outdated. This is a good idea if you write on a topic that will change over time.

Chapter 7: How to Copyright Your eBook Work

Posted under Write an eBook, eBooks