Is this a good idea and how can i protect my work?
I have an idea on how to self publish my manga. I am planing on making a website and having it so that people can buy a copy of my manga in ebook form and/or read it online. (similar to the way onemanga.com does it.) That way I would have my manga know and and ill be makeing money. Do you think thats a good idea. I think it is but im afraid of one thing. I know my work is automatically copyrighted but how do i protect myself in case someone trys to steal all my ideas and work in that book and make their on story and gets it published by a real company. How can i make sure im fully protected.
Tags: Ebook, Making A Website, Money, People, Real Company, Self Publish
November 9th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Read the copyright laws (http://www.copyright.gov/) and make sure your notices are properly posted in case you have to go after someone legally. Explore getting a formal copyright on your output.
If you want a quick and dirty means of proving original creation date, print out hard copy (and maybe include a CD) and put it into an envelope. Mail it to yourself. Don’t open it. You now have a sealed envelope with a date/time stamp on it acknowledged by a federal agency (the US postal service.) You can now prove that the envelope contents were created before a certain date. If you want to be sure, do it twice (one to open in court; the other to open for an attorney if required.)
Note that this trick is legal, but it’s even better to pay your money and get the formal copyright. This trick is useful before the copyright acknowledgement comes back (and as a backup.) It’s also useful for all minor changes you make between major version changes in the ebook.
Good luck in your endeavour.