4 Stars Chase Danger, Super Spy: Pirates of Pineapple Island Chase & Lisa Olivera Adam Goodman 32 Pages: Ages: 4 to 7 ................... From Website: 7-year-old super-spies Chase Danger and Princess Ali Bali must think fast when they discover pirates have stolen Zalezgon’s magical pineapples. But that’s not all! Ali’s little brother Aiden has been [...]
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This is a not infrequently asked question. The worry that your manuscripts need protection is pretty unnecessary, but let's go through this once anyway.
I don't send out stories, but if I did: copyright is more trouble than it's worth, and I've heard that the ways of documenting your manuscript via mail are not terribly secure in the legal sense.
This is where your critique group comes in handy. If you have been using a critique group, as you should, you have witnesses. But this is just a safeguard for worriers.
Let me be clear. The chances of your manuscript being stolen while at any of the reputable publishing houses are essentially the same as the chances you'll be killed by a python while riding a streetcar.
...But perhaps you're afraid someone will steal your idea. This is the concern that makes people at publishing houses laugh their espresso out of their noses. Your undeveloped, unrealized idea is intellectual property? Ah, the irony.
In publishing, execution is everything. Say, in 1998, somebody had come to me with the idea for a book about a kid who finds out he's magical and has to go away to school to learn about magic. My response would have been somewhere between "Eh," and "It's been done." Because it had been done. It took JK Rowling to express that idea in a way that was really what the market wanted. Behold the difference between idea and execution.
Ideas are not only a dime a dozen, they're recycled at a rate too fast to track. Write badly, and it doesn't matter how brilliant and original your idea is. Write well, and it doesn't matter how many times before your idea has been done.
Now go write!
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By: KidLitReviews,
on 12/4/2012
Blog: Kid Lit Reviews (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: pirates, Children's Books, Interviews, picture book, princess, pizza, animals, ocean, volcano, baby, surfing, cousins, pineapples, ships, flying, rockets, spies, Digital Book, islands, sword fighting, queens, 4stars, Library Donated Books, Chase Olivera, Adam Goodman, Ali Bali, Cahse Danger Super Spy, giant sharks, hang gliders, Jack Tracksler, Lisa Olivera, Magic Fire Music Book, newborns, pineapple pizza, Add a tag
Blog: Kid Lit Reviews (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: pirates, Children's Books, Interviews, picture book, princess, pizza, animals, ocean, volcano, baby, surfing, cousins, pineapples, ships, flying, rockets, spies, Digital Book, islands, sword fighting, queens, 4stars, Library Donated Books, Chase Olivera, Adam Goodman, Ali Bali, Cahse Danger Super Spy, giant sharks, hang gliders, Jack Tracksler, Lisa Olivera, Magic Fire Music Book, newborns, pineapple pizza, Add a tag
By: Editorial Anonymous,
on 5/19/2007
Blog: Editorial Anonymous (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: copyright, getting a clue, intellectual property, Add a tag
Blog: Editorial Anonymous (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: copyright, getting a clue, intellectual property, Add a tag
How do you protect the stories you send out. Copyright? or return receipt from the post office , etc?
This is a not infrequently asked question. The worry that your manuscripts need protection is pretty unnecessary, but let's go through this once anyway.
I don't send out stories, but if I did: copyright is more trouble than it's worth, and I've heard that the ways of documenting your manuscript via mail are not terribly secure in the legal sense.
This is where your critique group comes in handy. If you have been using a critique group, as you should, you have witnesses. But this is just a safeguard for worriers.
Let me be clear. The chances of your manuscript being stolen while at any of the reputable publishing houses are essentially the same as the chances you'll be killed by a python while riding a streetcar.
...But perhaps you're afraid someone will steal your idea. This is the concern that makes people at publishing houses laugh their espresso out of their noses. Your undeveloped, unrealized idea is intellectual property? Ah, the irony.
In publishing, execution is everything. Say, in 1998, somebody had come to me with the idea for a book about a kid who finds out he's magical and has to go away to school to learn about magic. My response would have been somewhere between "Eh," and "It's been done." Because it had been done. It took JK Rowling to express that idea in a way that was really what the market wanted. Behold the difference between idea and execution.
Ideas are not only a dime a dozen, they're recycled at a rate too fast to track. Write badly, and it doesn't matter how brilliant and original your idea is. Write well, and it doesn't matter how many times before your idea has been done.
Now go write!
6 Comments on Copyright, Intellectual Property, and the Threat of Pythons, last added: 5/20/2007
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Guy gets killed by a python on a streetcar?? Hey, you stole my idea!
:)
The Society of Authors said in the magazine last year some time that they would be interested to know if anyone had used the defence of having something posted to themself record delivery. I heard about that technique in the 80s, so it's donkeys' years old. But the jury's out on whether it's any use or not.
thanks so much for this post....it never ceases to amaze me how many people worry if you copyright an idea, when essentially, the idea is almost irrelevant if the writing isn't working.
A created work (written, recorded, etc.) already has copyright protection by the nature of its existance. This has been the case since 1978, I think. You need not apply for it; applying simply says that you are declaring to the world that you want to be recognized as having copyright, But you can do this for free by attaching a circle/c and the year and your name to it. Registering is a waste of $30.
IDEAS --- now that's a diffr'nt critter.
Forgive my cluelessness, but the storyline of the kid who finds out he's magic and has to go to magic school . . . who else did it first?
Wizard's Hall by Jane Yolen