How much does it cost to copywrite a book, and where can I go to get a book published?

Answer 1

Copyright is not something you should be concerned about. Write copyright, your name, 2006 under the title and it is copyrighted. You can post the ms to yourself as proof of date if your ms is so good that someone will steal it. Unless you are Dan Brown or Stephen King, I wouldn't be worried.

Real publishers do not charge you - they pay you. If a publisher or agent asks for money, they are not legit.

My advice is to concentrate on writing an excellent book. If you do that, you will sell it to a publisher. 99% of submissions to publishers/agent are badly written garbage. Yours has to be within the 1% of good stuff.

Answer 2

As a result of the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 you own all rights to work you created during of after 1978 for your lifetime+70 years, until you choose to sell all or part of the copyright for the work. Only your unique combination of words is what the law protects....Ideas & facts that are expressed cannot be copyrighted. There are many privet publishers as well as the big NY firms. If you are serious about publishing a book go to the reference section of your nearest libarary and do your research. You might want to start smaller by getting some articles published in magazines and build a resume/reputation before trying to get a book published. Good luck.

Answer 3

It's not actually necessary to register the book with any office or agency of the US government. Current copyright law protects your work from the moment of its creation until 70 years after your death. As other answerers have been smart to point out, what's specifically protected is the physical embodiment of your work -- the words and sentences on the page -- and not ideas, characters, themes, etc.

A lot of would-be writers are very concerned about getting their book officially copyrighted before submitting it to publishers. I guess they want to protect themselves from having their book stolen. As someone who works in publishing, I'd have to say that this really would not happen. If any editor actually came across an unsolicited manuscript that they loved and thought they could make money from, they would leap to publish that person. Why steal it? The author gets so little money anyway that it hardly affects the publisher's bottom line to pay the person for their work. Also, the author him/herself is a key promotional tool, so it makes little sense to cut that person out of the picture.

On the other hand, the stealing of IDEAS probably does happen, but copyright doesn't protect your ideas. I think the best measure you can take to keep the publisher from ripping off your idea is to carry out your brilliant idea as effectively as possible. Don't give them the chance to think, "This is a great idea for a book, but the author really bungled it!"

Answer 4

You copyright a book simply by putting your name on it. You can send it off to the copyright office but if you are really getting it published, the publisher could handle that. On your own it's about $35 in the US.
To do self publishing, there are several sites/vanity presses that can help you with that.
Check out: http://www.lulu.com
Otherwise, submit it to different publishers. Check out Writer's Digest Writer's Market for contacts.

Answer 5

if your send yourself a copy of the book inside a taped sealed box by going to the post office and have the post master stamp his seal over the tape then send it registered mail to yourself that is called intent to copyright and will hold up in court just present the box that no one has tampered with and have him open it up also in the box include a section of any newspaper with the date clearly shown on the web are sites that you can pay to have your book self published just type self publishing in and let the games begin