I have to tell you that when I logged onto the government website with the intention of copyrighting my romance novel, I was about to put my head through a wall. You know that feeling when you can actually feel the blood whisking throughout your body, and your eyes narrow, you start to feel a tightening within your chest and throat, and you clench your teeth? Yeah, that was me. There are SO MANY THINGS TO NAVIGATE!
Being a librarian, I think of myself as fairly tech savvy. I can usually figure out how to maneuver through any website and figure out what to do and reach my goal. Well the website I was on for copyright.gov was NOT at all helpful. Then I realized why…
I WAS ON THE WRONG WEBSITE! If you are trying to get your work protected through copyright, you need to go to ECO.copyright.gov and then log onto Youtube. I found the absolute best tutorial there.
What I did that was super helpful, was after finding Alessandra Torre’s fantastic tutorial on Youtube, I had the video open on one tab, and the ECO.copyright.gov open on another tab and would watch a little of the video, pause, then go to the copyright website and do what I learned. I did this step-by-step!
Self publishing for the first time by yourself is really daunting. There are so many steps that you have to do and in order no less. Something else I found out is about the ISBN numbers. You know, the numbers above the barcode on the back of the books you buy? Well, I thought when I bought the ISBN, (International Standard Book Number), that it came with the barcode. NOPE! You have to purchase the barcode separately. UGH!
But all in all, I am still super excited to be on this journey. I am buying my ISBN numbers this week. I was successful in getting my copyright for After The Fire, and next on the check list is getting my book cover designed and formatting done. These things will be done by the same company so that’s a load off my mind. They will be doing it for both ebook and paperback. More on that with my next blog post.
Thanks to everyone for supporting me and I promise to keep you all in the loop for the next steps with my self publishing project. Hopefully I will be able to give you all a sneak peek at the book cover design very soon. My goal is to have the book available by Christmas this year. Fingers crossed.
Happy reading!
