Should You Copyright Your Self-published Book? I Did.

Let me start off with a disclaimer – I am NOT a lawyer and this blog post should not be used as legal advice. What I am sharing with you is how I handled my copyright concerns when self-publishing my first book.

Since I always want to understand my risks, I have an attorney review just about any legal transaction in which I am involved. When I entered the field of self-publishing, of course I took the same approach. So, with that as a backdrop, and disclaimer, here is what I did:

I filed for a formal copyright for my book through the US Copyright Office.

While it is common for many writers to be content with the general understanding that once you put something in a recordable format, “you own it,” I wanted to have a formal copyright filing to protect my work. Consequently, I chose to work with a highly recommended intellectual property (IP) lawyer and I am glad I did. What I learned about IP was invaluable.

For instance, here is one very important point to consider when self-publishing your book.

My book has 25 watercolor illustrations (one for each poem) as well as cover art. While I could copyright the words, I did not own the artwork. The IP attorney recommended that I ask the artist to assign the copyright for each illustration to me. This was accomplished with a document prepared by the IP lawyer for both the artist and I to sign.

Now with the copyright for the words and the art are legally “mine,” I am free to use them as I please for the book, merchandise, and other publications. Absent this process, the book acknowledgements would have to clearly demonstrate that the art copyright belongs to someone else.

By the way, if you do work with an artist, it’s important that you have a firm understanding of how they are compensated; does the artist expect a share of revenue from book sales? That should figure into your selection of artistic candidates!

In addition to the watercolor artist, the same copyright assignment process was used for the book designer and photographer. I gave the team permission to use any work they supplied to me in their portfolios, but commercial rights belonged to me.

All that legal mumbo-jumbo said, it is important to note the contributions of each team member were praised in the Acknowledgements page of my book.

It’s up to you whether or not you want a formal copyright and to what extent – and it’s important that your expectations for copyright assignment are discussed up front with members of your team. Be aware that some artists and photographers may not assign the copyright to you.

I am most grateful for my IP lawyer’s expertise – and by the way, she also secured the necessary URLs and the trademark, “The Observant Poet.”