Hey, I am not sure if this is the right spot for this question. I recently hired a company to edit a book for me and get it ready to be published. They just informed me that I need to go through the author verification process. I can sign up for 1 year, 10 years or life. They claim this is to make sure that my book cannot be copied. I have searched online and was unable to really find anything like this. Pretty much I just want to know if this is a scam or something that I actually need to do.
I wouldn't get involved with them personally. Why not stick around the forum and get to know people. We are a helpful bunch that do not charge!
Is the company reputable? It doesn't sound legit! I'd have thought that the editing company would just charge a fixed per word fee and then before you start there will be a non-disclosure agreement or a contract signed up that will show that you are the author and they are the editor. Problem is if you put your finished or close to finished work on here in it's entirety then whilst it is free, technically it has been published, no publisher will take you on. I could be wrong by this but it is what I have seen judging by other peoples comments on this forum. This forum is good to get some impartial advice for excerpts of your work in progress not for complete works. All I am saying be careful.
Sounds sketchy. If you hired them to edit your book and get it ready for publishing, pay them for that. Don't let them talk you into paying for additional services.
Thanks, I felt like it was sketchy. I would not find a single thing on the net about what he was talking about.
That is actuly not true . The site is password protected , so not open to the public. If you post anything here or any password protected web site your not published . It is different if it is open to anybody, a blog for example . In answer to the original question . There is and old saying , ask a shoe maker what he thinks you will need to improve your life , his answer will be , some new shoes .
This forum is open to the public to view posts. You only need a password to write on the forum. Therefore, if you post work on here you have published it in the public domain.
Advice I was once given was to send yourself a copy of your manuscript in the post. Do not open the package when you receive it back. The postmark provides proof of the date if it is ever copied and comes to court.
Not quite. The workshop, the only place where you can post works (apart from blogs), requires login to view to view the posts. You would probably struggle to post your entire novel on the forum.
This is easy to fake, so it's not worth much in court. You may be better off just having witnesses initial/sign the pages of your manuscript, if they'd be willing to testify.
The workshop and the contests are behind a password - you can't view them unless you are logged on (and they also aren't indexed by search engine bots). The rest of the forum is open to non logged on view. That said the workshop is for works in progress not the display of finished work. also be aware that simply publishing a work on a website does not put it 'in the public domain'... the public domain is work to which intellectual property rights do not exist (e,g expired, waived etc) not simply work which is accessible to the public.
