Publishing related...

[the_j_factor]

Hello people!

I'm a lover, a lover of the English language and as such I am a free lance journalist. Although, I ain't a hardcore writer, I love writing articles, essays, stories and short stories, and have a good collection of them! And a dear friend of mine had suggested me of publishing these. I even thought of starting a magazine...

I want to know what are the legal formalities, if any, for any individual to publish such works

[BusinessAdviser]

Just publish 'em. Publish the hell out of 'em, champ.

[the_j_factor]

Yeah thats what I want to do but...how?

Whom shall I contact for printing it?
And how do I get Copyrights and other rights reserved?

specially for the magazine thingy...you know there are lot of complications to be dealt with right? So how do I proceed? What shall be the first step?

[BusinessAdviser]

Printing is one issue. Get online and locate printers. Contact them, discuss your proposed work, and find out costs. Very simple.

Copyrights is another issue. Most people are unfamiliar with copyright law. As soon as you put those words on that piece of paper, you became the copyright owner of them (assuming they are copyrightable - not facts, procedures, methods, systems, etc.). If you would like to register a work, you may do so with the U.S. copyright office, but it is not necessary to protect your copyright.

However, since this is a legal issue, the best thing to do would be to consult an attorney. Or at the very least, just do some online research. There is plenty of literature out there on the process of self-publishing, as it has become rather hot lately.

[the_j_factor]

What about the ISBN numbers etc.?

[BusinessAdviser]

Our printer is taking care of that for us. However, you can purchase an ISBN for your book. Just google it and it will walk you through what you need to do. Rather inexpensive actually.

[the_j_factor]

Thank you very much jmenq. You've proved beneficiary to me!!

But there's one more thing I need to know. I ain't in the US. So, is it possible to get registered copyrights in the US for a non-US based magazine/books?

[BusinessAdviser]

Yes. Rather than me trying to lay out an all-encompassing description for you, especially since I doubt I'm able to (especially with the limited information), I'll point you straight to the source.

Google the following:

The Berne Convention
The Universal Copyright Convention

There are a few more, but these should start to point you in the right direction.

[the_j_factor]

thanks man!!