Day: February 14, 2014

It’s Valentine’s Day and all of us at WITS want to send our heartfelt thanks to our guest bloggers and our amazing readers. Virtual chocolate hearts for everyone!

by Susan Spann 

Even though copyright protection is automatic and attaches to qualifying works (like novels) at the time of creation, an author can—purposefully or accidentally—transfer those rights by contract. During the next few months, my guest posts here at Writers in the Storm will take a look at some common contract terms to watch for … and to watch out for.

Today, we start with #1: the Unambiguous Statement of Copyright Ownership

Your publishing contract should always contain a statement that you, the author, “are and will remain” the sole owner of the copyright.

The language referencing copyright ownership usually doesn’t appear in the paragraph granting the publisher rights to publish the work. It normally comes in a later part…