[Display site] BookieJar

You can already post your work for critique here, after three more posts.

And putting it up on a display site will have squat to do with proving your ownership and copyright issues. For the last time, whoever is telling you crap like this really doesn't know bupkis about the business and is only playing on your fears.

After looking at it, it's a combo platter: display site and self-pub service. People post their work in the hopes it'll get noticed and they'll build up a readership, which can happen but it's so rare I wouldn't count on it.

Fata, there is no point in you using this site to "to publish part of my manuscript to get a time stamp and prove proprietorship". You don't need to do that.

And the part you quoted from its publishing agreement is very worrying. If I were you I'd steer well clear.

I'd also stop listening to the friends who are giving you all this advice. They don't know what they're talking about and might well lead you towards a very expensive mistake.

Why do you need a lawyer to certify your manuscript? What exactly are you worried about? If you're worried about copyright, just register it with the copyright office.

Welcome, GataMorgana

Your friends are giving you bad advice. I would steer clear of any sites that promise views and feedback for your work.

You don't need to copyright anything, as it is yours from the moment your write it. Any editor who said he would rewrite it as his own needs to get a life. Where did you find this person? Never mind, steer clear from him. He sounds unprofessional and like he does not know what he's doing.

Finally, you don't need a lawyer to certify anything. The work is yours.

It seems to me you are going just a bit overboard because you want to do everything just right and protect your work. Seriously, changes are nobody is going to steal it. Try to relax and spend your time writing instead of worrying.

Copyright projects actual sequences of words, not ideas. But then ideas on their own, even scientific ideas, don't really amount to much.

FataMorgana:
I know. But if I can prove it that he signed a nondisclosure agreement, edited it and published it in a different form, the lawyer says I have a case.

Click to expand...

I'm not a US lawyer but surely that all depends on whether s/he did sign a non-disclosure agreement (which is easy enough to prove) and what the terms of that agreement were and whether s/he actually publishes it. Even then, if the idea is generic, then the editor may have room to claim that it is his - especially because your book isn't finished yet.

Any lawyer is going to tell you you've got a case because there's always a case to make. The trick is knowing whether you've got a case that's actually worth pursuing.

Like everyone else here has said, you're wasting money by taking these measures. Copyright law protects the expression of your idea from the point of creation without spending money on bills and whistles to it.

Stick around the site, learn how publishing works and see about finding a decent beta from the beta forum. Then do your research on agents and publishers. That's the best thing you can do for you and your work.

MM

Please. Take a deep breath and calm down. You've started several threads on this same topic and we've given you the same answers every time. Asking us the same questions over and over isn't going to help you any more than we already have because we aren't going to change our answers. The only thing you can do from this point is just wait it out.

No, you're right. I stand corrected on the original topic, but through your own derail it's devolved into the same thing you've posted about before.

*banninates self from thread*

Having seen this derail previously, I'm going to lock this thread until Cao Paux or Old Hack can poke it with a sharp stick.