The Comfy Hermit

Intellectual property rights, trade marks, copyrights, and such all get very confusing. I am here to try and make it less.

ISBN

An ISBN is just an identifier. It helps libraries, retailers, etc. find your book. You only need an ISBN if you are looking to get into those networks. Depending on the bookstore, like if they purchase in bulk through Ingramspark, you will need an ISBN.

Of course, these come at a cost. Everyone wants a piece of the pie. You can purchase ISBNs through Bowker.

Barcodes

If you are going the Ingramspark (wondering what this is? read more in Print-On-Demand) route, you do not need to purchase a barcode. They will put their own on.

Copyright

Copyrights are a mean of saying you are the rightful owner, holder, creator, of your work. You can use it for things like literary work, digital work, blogs, photographs, motion pictures etc. the list can be found here. You do not copyright a business name, that is a trademark (more on that in a moment).

If you are looking to sell your books internationally or you are not in the USA and looking to sell your work here, make sure you are familiar with international copyright issues.

The full US Copyright laws can be found here.

The choice to officially copyright your work is your own. I am not here to provide legal advise, just to share resources and information. If you want legal advise, you will need to contact an attorney.

Trademark

Trademarks and copyrights are not the same thing. Trademarks (definition from the website): any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things that identifies your goods or services.

As an author, you wouldn’t trademark you name or pen-name. A voice actor or artist may trademark “Katarina M. Studios”, or whatever name they will use for their business.

Trademarks are costly. You have to research if the name is available. In the United States, you may classify your business as a DBA (Doing Business As) name and not trademark it within your state. If you want those layers of protection though, you have to check your individual state’s requirements for this process.

None of the above should constitute as legal advise. The Comfy Hermit cannot provide legal advise or tax advise as I am not an attorney or tax professional. We simply provide resources.