Protecting Your Work

Contracts

Remember: you may end up signing contracts with lots of companies: publishing houses, distributors, publicists … agents. Make sure to read the fine print on all. And make sure that one contract doesn’t violate another. Also, do some research on the people you are intending to work with before you sign anything. A quick Google search on “XYZ Publishing Company complaints” or “XYZ Book Agent complaints” might turn up surprising results.

Contracts will include the following:

• Intellectual property: copyrights, trademarks, exclusive and non-exclusive rights of editing and publicity
• Litigation: defamation, general liability, warranties and representations, indemnification
• Writing Deadlines: delivery, acceptance
• Editing Deadlines: process, acceptance
• Publishing Deadlines: process, date you go to print
• Promotion and Marketing: responsibilities (including book title and covers)
• Payments: distribution of payments including royalties

Resources

• CopyLaw.com: A good resource for contracts.
• PublishLawyer.com: A legal resource for publishing professionals.

Hijacking

• GoodReader.com: An article on how pirated Kindle books may hijack your amazon.com account.

Plagiarism

• SFWA.org: Hands down, the best article I’ve read on the issue of copyrighting. It’s a bonus it comes from the Science Fiction Writers of America.

Web Site Deterrants

• Copyscape.com
• DMCA.com
• NeatDesigns.net: WordPress Plugins
• WordPress.org: WP Content copyright protection

Pseudonyms

• Copyright.gov: pseudonyms

Protecting Other’s Work

• AccentuateServices.com: Using trademark names and brand names in your writing.
• DailyWritingTips: An article on using trademark names in fiction.

Please bear with me as I experiment with this page! Stay tuned!