A long time ago my wife’s grandfather took me off the side to caution me about a new job that I was starting at a door plant. My new employer was a well-known Christian company and he wanted me to be careful because many Christian companies are not what they seem. I have kept that in mind over the decades as his words not only proved valuable at that time but many years since.
Unfortunately, except for the exception of a few small places in the Christian workplace, I can say that Christian integrity is not very high. And it seems the “higher the standing,” in the church the more the abuse is tolerated. I’ve seen pastors lie, take other people’s orders at Christian cafes all because they felt entitled as a youth pastor. Or “buffalo” other people at a meeting just to see if they could get away with it. I know of one case where a well-known assistant pastor considers a secret thrill to steal candy bars from a gas station while paying for gas.
Generally, in many places, the fear of God is just as thick as their paper-thin integrity. And this brings me to a subject within, not only rampant in the Christian world but to any author, Christian or not struggling to find their dream.
Theft.
Theft of your product will happen at some point. My first self-published book was sold for pennies in Southeast Asia months after I released it on Amazon. Unfortunately trying to get that shut down was like playing that old online video game, “wack-a-mole.” I contacted many of those places via email to see another pop up right behind it. The reality was it was a pointless exercise as many of these countries play fast and loose with copyrights and the US government is not going to enforce anything over the few dollars you lost.
In the end, I found I needed to understand this is just how the game is played in the world and I learned to see this theft in a strange way as a compliment because thieves “don’t steal junk they can’t sell.”
Poor man’s copyright.
This simple trick is the least expensive route authors can take. At any point in the writing process, you print out your current manuscript. Seal it in a large Manila folder and have it mailed to yourself or someone you trust. Require a signature and then park it someplace safe. The trick is you do not open the package unless directed by a judge or an attorney.
This way you can prove in a court of law that the manuscript was at least in your possession on the date of mailing, this is solid evidence in a court because the sealed package contains a Federal seal, the postage stamp, and a required signature.
Get a Copyright
You as independent author and some well-known authors do this. They acquire copyright for their manuscript outside of the regular publisher. The good part is there have been some changes, you no longer need to submit a fully finished manuscript to take advantage of this protection. This is why you see some books listing several copyrights, just submit a healthy chunk of what you have. And then make sure you get one last one that covers it all when completed. And with this in place, it brings me to the next step.
Blog
Unfortunately, most authors are introverts. It’s all something we deal with but this is often the well that empowers our determination to write. This reality makes it hard to do public things, things that we need to do as authors.
A blog is a public format to not only grow your future audience but also help provide a measure of protection. Using some of your own content that you have already copyrighted, talk about it, use it as examples, provide small excerpts for people to enjoy. When you do, these become public for everyone to see with a trackable date. Yes, you do want people to interact, comment, and talk about your product. But the main focus is to “plant your flag” publicly by saying that you claim this as yours.
ISBN
This is a tricky one as a self-published author. ISBN provides a measure of safety and traceability across the publishing world and if you only ever do self publish and self-marking then there is nothing to worry about. However, if you plan on taking your product eventually to another publisher then other issues may or may not arise. Some other publishers prefer to track and market with their own ISBN’s that way when a store owner and other places see it in the publishers’ catalog and do a search. The book shows up under their name and not someone else’s name.
Having your ISBN, registered to you and not them may cause issues, so walk this one out carefully and read the fine print.
Robert A. Foster
