Copyright on fiction

How do I put copyright on my short stories?

[Jim Westergren]

Hi,

I have a site as a to-be-author with my short stories, essays, ideas and so on.

As for now I have placed a "Copyright © Jim Westergren 2005" notice on the end of each page but what is the official way to do it? As you may understand I want to protect my work so somebody else does not publish it before me.

/ Jim

[bruhaha]

The copyright notice can vary a bit. The standard form is to start with eitherthe word "Copyright" or the copyright sign (don't need both, though some do that and it's OK) followed by the date, then by the entity holding the copyright (in this case your name). Thus you would post:

© 2005 Jim Westergreen

OR

Copyright 2005 Jim Westergreen

Please note that this is no more than a copyright NOTICE. It does not, of itself, provide copyright protection. Actually your work is copyrighed without it (though it is still wise to use it to let people know), as soon as you have put it in some fixed medium. Also, at some point you may wish to consider REGISTERING your copyright (using forms from the Library of Congress + paying a fee, of course).

[Beagle]

Jim, just a heads up that many publishers consider content that's been on a publicly-available website as already having been published and will either turn it down or pay you only for re-pubishling rights instead of first-use. It's great to have examples of your work posted for potential pubishers to see, and for non-fiction work some publishers prefer to see your writing samples on a website because it's easier for them than getting them in the mail, but that's just your "resumé" and very different from selling them that particular content. You might want to check out the guidelines of publishers you're interested in submitting to before you decide what to put on your website and what not to.

'Course, if you're planning to self-publish, ignore all of the above. ;-)

[Jim Westergren]

Thanks for your answers and the info.

On my web site I have only my short stories and not my novel and it's the novel I whish to publish later.

/ Jim

[Beagle]

Ah, I see. I misunderstood your plans. Hope it works out well for you. :-)