I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write a new blog post. Oh yes…I do know. I was finishing my novel!
Yes, it’s done, and I should have announced it before, and sent out birth announcements or bottles of champagne or some such thing. I did tell a few people, close family, and one or two friends. They all seemed very pleased for me, and I figured that by word of mouth, in a couple of days, the whole world would know!
But that’s not how it happened. Many, many times, when I was talking in general about it, I got, “You never told me you’d finished!!!†My response of “But I thought you knew?†never satisfied them.
I finished on May 31, 2013, and the word count is 142,990. I’m not satisfied with it, but it’s done. Or at least done enough to be read and/or edited by someone other than myself. On June 1, 2013, then promptly sent it to my editor, Kathy Resch, who is in the midst of editing it.
In June, I went to the Historical Novel Society’s annual conference. (That was my reward for finishing the novel.) I’ll blog about that at another time, but, in short, I met some amazing people, who were all into the same thing I was: historical fiction. I’d ask them about their novel and they’d open their mouths and out would come everything they knew about their historical period, and I’ve never had so many interesting conversations in my life.
Anyway, when I came back, I guess I kind of figured that the novel would have revised itself, seeing as how hard I’d worked on it. But it hadn’t. I sat down to read it through, and made some notes, and then…didn’t really know how to fix all the problems I saw in it. So I put it away, and worked on other things (an outline for another historical novel), let the manuscript sit there.
At the beginning of July, I decided I needed to get out of the house some more (like, ever), so I looked at what was on offer, and found that the Boulder Bookstore was hosting a seminar on self-publishing. The seminar was presented by The Troy Book Makers, of Troy, NY, and was well worth the fee, just for the little book that you got to take with you, that listed all the issues that go into self-publishing. The presenter not only gave a lot of good information, but also answered all of questions, and very well too. They have complete packages, as well as a la carte author services; I was very impressed with this indie publisher, who took the effort and the time to come all the way out to Colorado.
One of the things the presenter told me, right up front, was that I should register my novel for a copyright. There are different views on copyrights, whether they are necessary or not, whether they really protect you or not, and so on. But at the very least, you can state, in a court of law, that yes, this creation is yours, belongs to you, and nobody else. Well, besides the fact that when you write a book (or create any art) and put it out there, for public consumption it no longer belongs only to you, it also belongs to your audience, but you see what I mean.
I was very inspired, so quite soon after that I went to the appropriate website, and registered my novel. Which means, in short, that the novel is now official. Or almost!
When I registered in July, I thought, oh, it’ll take two or three weeks, at most. But when I went back to check, my case was still open. So then I went to find out how long it normally takes (or currently takes), and this is what I found out:
How long does the registration process take, and when will I receive my certificate?
The time the Copyright Office requires to process an application varies, depending on the number of applications the Office is receiving and clearing at the time of submission and the extent of questions associated with the application. Current Processing Times
Processing Time for e-Filing: generally, 3 to 4-1/2 months
Processing Time for Paper Forms: generally, 5 to 8 months
Note: For works that are determined to be copyrightable and that meet all legal and procedural requirements for registration, the effective date of registration is the date the Copyright Office received the completed application, correct payment, and copy(ies) of the work being registered in acceptable form. You do not need to wait for a certificate to proceed with publication.
Can you believe it? Is copyrightable even a word?
I filed electronically in July, so I’m looking at October at the earliest, or December at the latest, for my copyright to be real. It shouldn’t take that long, you’d think, to read a novel that’s 142K long, should it? Or, I guess, if you think about it, me and a thousand other folks all submitted novels on the same day, and they probably only have a staff of two…..and they’re already up to their hips in books.
But at least, as they tell me, I don’t need to wait to proceed with the next step in my self-publishing journey.
So, okay, if this is you, if you’re self-publishing, go and register your book for copyright at www.copyright.gov. It only costs $35, and takes about 10 minutes. Well, it’ll take less time than that, that is, if you’re not using your sister’s old, old, old laptop that acts as though it were on a Bataan Death March and about to kick the bucket. Anyway, when you’re done, you’ll feel official!
For more reading, here’s an interesting article on the state of the publishing industry.