: Accidentally sent a work-in-progress to a stranger I was sending files between two email accounts and accidentally sent the first 8k words of a work-in-progress to a stranger. I'm not published,

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I'd send the person an email apologizing for accidentally sending them the document and requesting them to ignore it and throw it away.

The probability that a random stranger is going to be interested in stealing your work is pretty close to zero. Unless he's a writer himself, odds are he doesn't have the faintest idea how to go about publishing it. He probably has no idea how copyright law works, or what steps if any you may have taken to protect your rights, so he'd have no idea if he could get away with stealing your work.

And in any case, advice I give to new writers all the time: Many new writers worry way too much about someone stealing their work. Don't waste a lot of time protecting yourself from thieves. Spend your time writing and polishing your work to get it to the point where it would be worth stealing.

Yes, there are people out there who steal others' work. But it's not like there are millions of them just waiting to pounce. You take reasonable precautions and don't worry about it. There are a lot more people who will steal your television than will steal your writing. But if you're like most people, that doesn't mean that you cower in the corner clutching your television to your chest and holding a shotgun. You take a few reasonable steps, like locking your doors and not advertising to the world a list of all the valuables in your house, and get on with your life. Likewise, if you hope to ultimately be paid for your work, I wouldn't make a habit of emailing it to random strangers, or posting it on the Internet. I'd certainly register the copyright when you're ready to publish. And that's about it.

Realistically, the thieves are more likely to steal from famous authors, not little people like you and me.

BTW: I have had my work stolen, sort of. I found an article I posted on my web site being sold on one of those "we'll write your term paper for you" sites. But as I was publishing on the web where anyone could get it for free anyway, I didn't much care.

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