This post is part of the Publishing Resources Guide. Read more about Getting Started.
Copyright is a topic that’s broad, complex, boring and frustrating, right? It’s just business stuff that writers can “hire people for” so they don’t have to be bothered with the technical stuff, right?
Nope!
Copyright and contracts is where you make your money, and what’s more exciting than that? Copyright is a subtle weapon that can and will be used against you throughout your career, so you better be prepared to defend against those attacks. The devil’s in the details, and if you’re not looking for them you’ll miss them.
The good news is that you can learn to protect yourself, and set your career up to be as lucrative as possible from the beginning. Here are three resources that I consider indispensable for all authors.
Note: this post contains affiliate links, which means I may make a small commission from the sale at no cost to you.
The Magic Bakery by Dean Wesley Smith
The Magic Bakery: imagine a place where you can bake any kind of pie that delights you, where you bake it once and then sell it again and again and again, and earn money from it forever. Sound like a fictional dream? It’s not. It’s the magic of intellectual property and copyright, and it’s what’s in store for your writing if you set your business up right to begin with. This is a whimsical metaphor that works surprisingly well, and it’s a fun read.
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It’s also available in a bundle that I highly recommend (see below), because it includes another book I’ll be talking about in a minute.
The Copyright Handbook: What Every Writer Needs to Know by NOLO Press
Ok I admit, this one is a little on the dry side. And it took me longer than I care to admit to get through it. But it takes a very dense and dry topic and presents it in an understandable and accessible way. It will explain US copyright to you, show you how to register (and why), explain how to transfer copyright, and what to do about infringement. Plus more. It will give you a solid understanding of copyright for the written word. Yes it will make you concentrate to finish it, and maybe take notes or force yourself to get through different parts until you’re finished, but you didn’t expect to start a business without having to do any research into the basics of how your business is run, did you? Understanding copyright is a foundational corner to running a good publishing business, regardless of what routes you take.
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Closing the Deal on Your Terms by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
This is where the rubber meets the road. You’ll get a crash course in how copyright is used within the publishing industry, how copyright is woven into contracts, and how that effects your money and your creative future. Yes, literally your future. This book is for indie and traditionally published authors alike. I’ve included it in this post because it gives a hands-on guide to the application of copyright through a career, instead of the more theoretical or instructional approaches of the first two books.
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This book was originally written as a series of blog posts, which you can still read for free: Contracts and Dealbreakers. I still recommend the bundle as the best deal, but it’s there if you want to check it out. She did clean it up a bit and re-order it for the published book.
This book is also available in a bundle, which I recommend. See below.
Bundle on Business: A WMG Writer’s Guide by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith
An excellent bundle. I’d read The Magic Bakery first, because it’s more basic than Closing the Deal, and you’ll want to understand the basics of copyright before you start reading Closing the Deal.
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And while you’re at it, I suggest you go ahead and subscribe to Rusch’s blog: KrisWrites.com. (There’s a “Subscribe to this Blog” button on the side or bottom- make sure you get the blog one and not one of the book ones) She puts up a weekly newsletter on business that I think is invaluable.
I can hear the indie publishers saying that contracts don’t matter to them because they’re not selling their books to a publisher, so they don’t have to read Closing the Deal. But that’s not the whole story. What about those group box sets or anthologies that go around indie publishing circles periodically? Or the “retail stores” that want a piece of your copyright just to get listed on their site? Or the “service providers” who will publish your book for you, if you only pay them a fee to do so? Or if you want to hand off your audiobook or foreign language publication to another company? You’ll need to know how to handle these situations, even if you’re indie published.
Copyright might seem basic as a concept, but it’s application can be subtle and nuanced, so much so that you may not even recognize what’s going on if you don’t know what to look for. Contracts are legal documents that define how you are exploiting your copyright. Make sure you understand it so you’re exploiting your intellectual property, and not the one being exploited.
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