Take the extra time to make everything legal. I self-published Killer Career, but before doing so, I registered my publishing company, Choice One Publishing Co. with the Cook County Clerk of the State of Illinois.
I also applied for and obtained a trademark from the Secretary of State of Illinois for the use of my pen name, Morgan Mandel.
When I requested the rights back for my backlist books from Mundania Press, I sent and kept a copy of the certified letter requesting the reversion of my rights.
I contacted Mundania and told them I needed written confirmation and received an email verifying I had my rights back.
To busy authors, this may seem like nitpicking, but it could save you grief in the longrun. Saturday, I received an inquiry from Amazon about my publishing rights for Two Wrongs, which I'm in the process of getting up on Kindle. After rummaging around today, I found copies of all of my documentation and sent it along to Amazon. Hopefully, they'll be quick about clearing this up, since I'd hoped to have this book back in circulation by now under my own auspices at the reduced 99 cents price on Kindle.
Okay, now that I'm through bragging about having all this stuff to at my disposal, I must confess it took a little while to find it. Not as long as I'd thought it would, though. I was lucky this time. I do save a lot of things, and not all of those things come in handy when I need them.
What about you? Are you legal? Have you run into any roadblocks where you had to provide some sort of legal proof?
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| Morgan Mandel |
Morgan Mandel's Books -
Killer Career - 99 cents Kindle, Smashwords
Girl of My Dreams - 99 cents Kindle and Smashwords
Two Wrongs - 99 cents Smashwords, Kindle to follow when
Amazon sorts this out.
Forever Young: Blessing or Curse - Coming very, very soon to
Kindle & Smashwords for $2.99, I promise
5 comments:
Wise advice. Today, unless you have both a resident attorney competent in intellectual property, or you are a member of Author's Guild, authors need, or a well-set up agent, be hyper vigilant.
interesting thoughts
Very good advice, Morgan, especially in today's publishing climate.
Awesome! ;]
I haven't done that, but I have sent a letter to iUniverse telling them I want the rights back to my novel When Pigs Fly. Then I will republish it using CreateSpace to make it the same as my others.
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