When authors ask me how to copyright their material, the first three things I tell them are, 1) your work is already copyright protected, in fact, it’s protected from the moment you create it, 2) make sure you use the copyright symbol - © (in most books you will see “Copyright © 2006, by Author’s Name”) and 3) mail yourself a copy of your manuscript so you can prove the date that you wrote it. And that is really all you need to do, unless you find that someone has used your work without your permission.

If you find that someone has used your work and you decide to litigate, you’ll need to make sure your material is registered. Registration costs $35.00 online/$45 paper and you can register fairly easily by going to http://www.copyright.gov/ This website will tell you all you need to know about copyrights. One point I’ll make here is that the earlier you register, the more you can recover should you go to court. If you register after you find an infringement, you can still recover your actual damages and the infringer’s profits from your work, but if you register before someone infringes, then you can also recover “statutory damages,” which are rewarded by the court and may exceed what you actually lost and attorney fees.

So the fourth thing I tell authors is to go to www.copyright.gov and register their work. It’s inexpensive, easy to do and it’s a good, street-smart step to take.