: Re: What do I put on my copyright page when self-publishing? The question is pretty much what the title is. I do know that all intellectual property is protected by copyright law from the moment

@Heady158

Vote Up Vote Down

Are you asking simply about the copyright statement, or about all that stuff that gets put on the copyright page?

If you're just worried about the copyright statement: Put "Copyright 2015 by Fred Smith", filling in whatever the year is that you first publish your book, and your name.

It is a very good idea to register your copyright. As you said you are in the U.S., you do that with the U.S. copyright office, copyright.gov. For a book it costs . You have to fill out a form that's fairly long but not difficult. Mostly it's obvious stuff, like name of the author, title of the book, etc. Unless someone else paid you to write it, it is NOT a "work for hire". If you included material created by someone else -- like you include a quote from George Washington or the lyrics of a pop song -- then whether you got explicit permission, or whether you are relying on the "fair use doctrine", you have to specify just what was created by you that your are claiming copyright to, and what was created by others. Like my last book included a bunch of Bible quotes, so I had to specify that I am not claiming that I wrote the Bible. (Presumably the folks at the copyright office know that, but there are plenty of cases where it would not be so obvious.)

If you mean the whole copyright page: I think the easiest answer is to say, look at copyright pages in other books, and see what sort of things they include. Typically you'll include your own copyright notice, the ISBN and LCCN if you have one, and disclaimers for material you used that you did not write yourself.

(0)

Login to post a comment!