How to Avoid Getting your Novel STOLEN 

That last one would be easy for me and my gazillion drafts & edits... That reminds me, I need to start over AGAIN, doh!

Also, make notes throughout the process, gather resources, references, because that also shows the process of your writing - the thief will defo have non of that. I keep photos of places, people I based my characters off of, music pieces that I mention within my book - anything that helped me write the book.

@@marikothecheetah9342 Great strategy!

@@MrNoucfeanor I hate when that happens. 😂

@@5Gburn One nice thing about starting over is that I have other stories that I can work in as future books! I really do need to finish, though.

Glad it was helpful!

Thanks for the kind words! So you're wondering about how to publish your book internationally? And Amazon won't let you because of sanctions?

@@Bookfox thankyou for responding! Yes, transfering money just isn't an option (I'm from Iran) for that reason I thought to myself I should give up on self publishing and go for Trad publishing, recently a friend told me Agents probably won't accept you because of this exact issue, and I was wondering how should a person like me in this situation approach the publishing.

That movie "The Kindergarten Teacher" is about exactly that.

My professor stole my idea for dissertation and presented it as one of the topics to choose from AFTER she convinced me not to dabble in it... Yeah... Theft of intellectual work hits more because it is unique to you.. You can buy exact same TV but it's almost impossible to recreate the story 1:1.

Wow, what a horrible experience.

I can relate a little. I printed out a couple chapters of my ya novel in 2015 and my stepmother just TOOK them, all the pages, off my bed without my permission and at first wouldn't give them back. She wanted to make fun of me too. 😢

@@lovetolovefairytales Wow. What a nasty thing to do.

@@michaelsamerdyke108 sadly, doing nasty spiteful things was definitely up her alley. I've honestly never understood why she was so mean towards my passion, which was writing. She wasn't a writer or a reader herself, but she had her own talent, a beautiful singing voice, so I found it hard to get why she'd actively resent what was mine.

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it.

That is plausible. It really might not have been intentional. They remembered the story but dissociated it from you - common thing, unfortunately, and they internalised the idea. Happens a lot, do not be discouraged by that. And write the book about that country.

Isn't identity theft a crime? If yes - police to get the info of this mothafkrrr IP and a lawsuit in hand.

Amazon cares about profits, not people and yet people fuel it like crazy and buy stuff from it every single day.:/ Because convenience.

Welcome aboard! I'm so glad to break that habit. Come into the Bookfoxer fold, it's warm in here and we love writing and books.

Absolutely. My worries of people stealing my stuff quickly dissapated after I read it two weeks later :)

In general, this is true. I almost didn't make this video because I didn't want to be seen as fear-mongering. And most of the time I'm telling people that they should worry less about their novel being stolen and more about making the best novel they can. Still, I hope by telling actual stories of where it happened, the video was less sensationalist and more practical.

@@Bookfox you go bro! incredible video: distinctive informative succinct amazing!

😳Goodness you need to venture into more of the writing community if you think stories aren’t stolen. Hopefully intellectual property theft never happens to you, but it happens enough to be a concern. And that’s not even adding the theft of written works being input into datasets to feed AI Generators = stealing written works. Stealing usually doesn’t make sense, just like scamming doesn’t. It is a lot of effort, usually more complicated than if the thief/scammer just did the actual work. However, that unfortunately does not deter those people, especially if they can garner money from it. In the case of writing, stealing it likely will involve less time and effort than actually writing the book; depending on the method of theft. People have had their work stolen from scams, hacking, and whatnot. Just last year there was someone taking portions of published books and piecing them together and selling them on Amazon; trying to avoid being noticed for copyright infringement. I’ve had articles stolen. Twice was by a magazine editor who accepted my submissions of the article/story and photos. He didn’t pay me nor give due credit, but gave my work to a staffer who then changed enough words to not be verbatim but had a similar line of story and took photos himself to imitate mine. Thus difficult to fight if I’d have had the means to do so, but a clear case of theft considering the personal aspects of the story were unique to me. I think he eventually got a rep for doing this. As a coloring book artist I have experienced theft and seen more in my friends books. There are people who copy text and illustrations from either an artist’s site or book and try to publish under their own name. Most even have the artist’s name and the copyright logo on the page from the artist’s site; which is good because then it’s easy evidence of theft. A different circumstance, but to what has happened with written works. There are dozens if not hundreds of websites out there which are like Wattpad and Vella. Many feature AI generated stories and stolen stories. They’re hard to catch because if an author nor their readers venture to those sites how would they find them? Many of these have a pay-per-chapter requirement after so long. Sometimes they change the names of characters. Usually they’re uploaded under a username with little info. Sometimes they brave trying to publish on Amazon. Many time those stories then get copied and published elsewhere for free, but the sites they’re published on are full of shady ads, viruses, and phishing. As with anything, there’s some nasty people out there doing harmful things. Thankfully the majority of folks are not like this, but shtuff does indeed happen. It was a good video to make; especially about officially registering a copyright as so many do not understand that concept and that mailing yourself a copy is less likely to help in a court of law.

@@Bookfox Yes you did a good job. You gave specific examples and practical ways to safeguard. AND you ended the video basically saying what this comment is getting at: Stop coming up with excuses, write your book, and get people to read it.

That is absolutely true.

If that's the case, why does it matter? It's their risk.

​@@aouyiu Because it's my book and I have the right to choose who gives it for free. It can ban my book from specific sites. If I ever decide to sell it, some markets are banned because of the theft. They didn't ask, and I also don't want readers to get a virus and think I sanctioned it. The reason I offered the book was to give free ebooks to readers who couldn't afford books but weren't willing to pirate them. It took me a while to get the books pulled.

Well, but it's not stealing from Amazon. Amazon still gets their cut whether it's a fradulent book or not. So they don't really have a motivation to stop it.

I appreciate that!

You'll have to check the copyright laws in your particularly country. Many are similar, but a few might have crucial differences.

Thank you! Cheers!

Happy to hear that!

...in which case, said poor individuals would not steal someone else's honest hard work. Right?😮

If a book isn't available in your country you can use a VPN to legitimately buy it from a country where it is available. Not necessarily legal but at least the purchase is legitimate. Don't see how piracy would help anyone.

Well, you can't copyright ideas or plot points. Only the actual words you used to express those ideas. The best defense is publicity, so your story is known before anyone else seizes it.