Confirm the copyright plan
Confirm the copyright notice
Check that the copyright page carries a correct notice: the symbol or word, the year of first publication, and the right owner's name.
Authors often hire help with this: legal or contract.
Why it matters
The notice names the owner, and a wrong name on thousands of printed copies is an error that outlives the print run. It also sits next to the other facts on the copyright page (ISBN, Library of Congress data, edition statement), so checking it is the natural moment to check all of them. The Copyright Office's Circular 3 describes the form and placement.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Author. Publisher drafts the copyright page; author verifies the notice before final files
- When
- Before the final files go to the printer or ebook converter, typically three to four months before publication (Confirm the copyright plan: six to three months before publication, and registration around publication)Checked September 13, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
A copyright notice is the short line on the copyright page: the © symbol (or the word "Copyright"), the year of first publication, and the name of the copyright owner. For works first published in the United States on or after March 1, 1989, a notice is optional under United States law, but it is standard practice, it tells readers and licensees who owns the work, and it removes an infringer's ability to claim they did not know the work was protected.
Read the notice and check the name. It should name you, or the legal owner behind your pen name, as the copyright owner of the text, unless the contract transfers copyright to the publisher, which is unusual for trade books and common in some academic and work-for-hire arrangements. A publisher's own name in the notice for a work you own is worth querying. Illustrations, photographs, and translations may carry separate notices for their own owners. If you are writing the notice yourself, use the year the book is first published and your name, and keep it on the title page or the page immediately after it, which is where the Copyright Office says a book notice belongs.
Read the final copyright page proof before files go to the printer or the ebook converter. The notice is easy to check and awkward to fix after printing.
Common mistakes
- Naming the publisher as owner of text that the author owns under the contract.
- Using the year the book was written or the year of the contract instead of the year of publication.
- Forgetting separate notices for illustrations or photographs owned by someone else.
- Assuming the notice registers the copyright. It does not; registration is a separate step.
Identifiers for Confirm the copyright notice
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copyright registration Filing a claim for your book with the United States Copyright Office, which creates the public record of the claim. | Your copyright exists the moment the book is fixed in tangible form, so registering is not what gives you ownership; it is the public record of the claim and the step that unlocks certain legal remedies in the United States. Traditional and hybrid contracts vary, in that many commit the publisher to register in the author's name and some do not mention it at all, so normally you read the agreement and then ask in writing who files and in whose name. If you publish the book yourself, or the contract leaves it to you, filing is yours to do once the book is in final form. Record the registration number and date with the rest of the book's records. | Add your registration number |
What done looks like
- A notice with all three elements: © or "Copyright", the year of first publication, and the owner's name.
- The owner named correctly for each copyrightable element (text, illustrations, translation, foreword).
- The year matching the actual first publication, not the year the manuscript was written.
- The notice on the title page or the page immediately following it.
- The final proof of the copyright page saved with the Book Identity Sheet.
Ask your publisher
Copy this into an email. Replace the bracketed parts with your details.
Sources and last checked
- Official source
- Official source (opens in a new tab)
- Last checked
- September 13, 2026
- How confident we are
- Verified
Rules and deadlines change. We last checked this information on September 13, 2026. If you see something that needs updating, please tell us.