I learned a hard learned lesson by not copywriting an e-book I wrote a few years ago. I can't say that I did not make a little bit of money before somebody stole my work, because I made around six thousand dollars off of one months work. But I wonder how much I could have made if I would have spoted the $35 for a United States Copyright.

I was selling my e-book on Ebay, selling around 50 copies a day at $4.99 each for the electronic version of my e-book. I was selling for a few months without any problems. Then one day I noticed somebody was trying to sell my e-book for $3.99, thus undercutting my own set price.

I emailed the individual and threatened them and told them it was wrong to resell my work. The person agreed and quit selling it. However, it wasn't long before another person tried selling my work. This time when I contacted the person, the person emailed me back and said "tough luck, you don't have a copyright."

This person explained that they searched the U.S. copyright website and my book wasn't in the database. She was right, it wasn't. Pretty soon the book sold for as little as ninety nine cents and it was no longer worth my time to sell it.

Since then I have had a paperback book published and I can say it is copywritten. By the way, it hasn't made near as much as my e-book did. Just another hard learned lesson in life!

Author's links: http://www.warprocket.com