Publishing Poetry Free & Getting It Copyrighted

Video Transcript

"Well, you need to know how to get your publish, your work published for free and handling the copyright. Of course, you publish poetry for free. Money flows toward the author, o.k. and poetry, there's not usually any money involved. But you never pay to get published, unless you're self publishing a book. If a publisher asks you for money, because you've submitted a poem or if you've submitted a manuscript, run away. That's all, because that's a scam. You won't make much money in poetry but it shouldn't cost you anything besides maybe, the postage to send stuff out. Usually, if it is a Print Journal, you'll get two copies. This year I've already made five dollars from poetry, which will make it my best year ever. You don't expect a lot of money but you don't pay for it. As far as copyright, first of all you need to familiarize yourself with copyright law and the Library of Congress has a site. I don't remember the address off hand, but go to the Library of Congress, LOC.gov. And they will show you the actual copyright law, you can read it. And they have an FAQ that you can read also, that will explain the general points of it. You own the copyright because you have written it. Once you have fixed it in a tangible form, which is what the law says. That's it, you own the copyright, the copyright is the right to make copies in any form. You cannot lose that accidentally, you have to sign something and deliberately give it away. If you put it on the Internet, you are not giving up the copyright. What you're doing is, you're letting someone use the first electronic publishing rights. You may be using them yourself, if you put it on your Blog, or something like that. But that doesn't mean you don't own it anymore. Now you can also register the copyright and you can do that on-line through the Library of Congress. I forget, what the fee is, it's about thirty six bucks. And there is no point in doing that until the work has been published. If you're published in a Print Journal or in some of the more professionally run on-line journals. They will register each issue as a compilation copyright and that will protect you. You can register separately, if you like, but it's not so necessary. There are some cases of individuals stealing poems from other individuals. I've been in the business since 1972 and I have never heard of a publisher stealing a copyright from someone."