As soon as you write anything on paper or commit your story to your hard drive, you own the copyright to your work according to the U.S. Copyright Office. You don't need formal registration even though that is certainly wise once you get the work published.
The fastest way not to get published is to ask agents, editors, publishers, and ghostwriters if it is safe to send them samples of your work or to request that they sign non-disclosure or con-compete documents. We get thousands of queries a year (in some cases, tens of thousands of queries a year). If we had to sign such documents every time we received a query, we'd live at the Post Office.
No one in a reputable position in the publishing industry is going to steal your work. If you ask whether it is safe to share your ideas, you are guaranteeing that your query will be ignored.
~ William Hammett
Contact wmhammett@aol.com
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