Take care, be well, and happy blogging.
Denny

Hi Denny,

Well… if there’s a maxim a writer should live by, it’s that if you’re good at something, don’t do it for free. Writing, creating, brainstorming, and eventual publishing take time and money and everyone deserves to be compensated for their time.

You may notice that I have several stories posted on here that are not currently in print. That’s because most of them are either abandoned stories or ones I never really considered worth publishing. In one or two cases, I posted them to gauge reader reaction and decide if it was worth publishing.

I’d leave those up because they’re really rough drafts and there would be many edits and changes made to a final product, so it wouldn’t be the same thing. However, I never post more than a single chapter of any published work.

Anyway… I know that doesn’t answer your question. So if you’re going to go against the piece of advice, let me put it this way; your work is YOUR WORK the moment you put it to paper. It is technically already copyrighted. However that’s not going to stand up in any court if you decide to pursue a claim. Posting on a blog, free or paid does not guarantee you ANY protection. You’re putting your work out there, it isn’t up to the site to protect that.

Personally, I’d stay away from ANY resource on copyrighting if the site doesn’t have a .gov at the end of it. I’m not sure what country you’re from, but for the U.S., the best thing you can do is register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office. 

I know a lot of people will say that if you’re going through traditional publishing, don’t do this because most publishers won’t take the extra time and money to purchase the copyright from you. However that doesn’t appear to be what you’re doing so it doesn’t apply. This is for posting your work and for self-publishers.

So I guess the best advice I could give is to register any work you plan on posting and do not post any work that you plan on publishing later.

Hope that helps. Readers, what do you think? Is there a better way to protect your work? Let Denny know in the comments.

Readers,

Do you have a question about writing, publishing, my stories, etc? Please feel free to post a comment or email me.

jimthewritingwizard@gmail.com

I’ll use those comments to select my next blog post.

I have been writing for several years, have 4 published works, experience with publishing and independent work, so I can hopefully be of assistance.

Please note, I only do one of these a day and will do my best to respond to everyone, but it may take some time.

Also, feel free to check out my works of Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Available on Amazon and where ever books are sold. See the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/James-Harrington/e/B00P7FBXTU

Thanks friends!

Catch you on the flip side!

-Jim