Hi all,
I'm releasing an e-book at the end of the month which will be $2.99 on Amazon but will be available as a free PDF download on my blog.
There will be a donate button, with an accompanying note stressing that payment is optional, but that if people find the e-book useful I would be grateful if they contributed a donation or purchased on of my other titles.
I want people to be free to use the e-book in whichever way they choose, including putting it up for download on their own site, or emailing it to whoever they like. The only restriction I want to place is that they do not charge for it.
I know very little about copyright, and I could do with some advice here.
What I was thinking of was to put a note at the start of the PDF where the copyright notice usually is, saying something like this (this is a rough first attempt):
Free PDF Edition
This e-book is freeware. This means you are free to copy it, distribute it, and use it in whichever way you choose. You can put it up on your site for download, you can email it to whoever you like. All I ask is that you do not attempt to profit from the sale of it. I would like this information to be freely available to anybody who wants to learn about digital self-publishing. If you find this e-book useful, I would be extremely grateful if you could come to my site and make a donation. Doing so will help to cover part of the costs of producing this e-book, as well as help pay me for my time. If this payment model is successful, it will allow me to produce further work this way.
Are there any issues with doing this that I am not aware of?
Do I still need to put "Copyright 2011 David Gaughran" at the start? Or should I not put that?
Does this affect my ability to assert copyright over the Kindle version (which I am charging for and which will be virtually identical)?
Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.
Dave
I'm releasing an e-book at the end of the month which will be $2.99 on Amazon but will be available as a free PDF download on my blog.
There will be a donate button, with an accompanying note stressing that payment is optional, but that if people find the e-book useful I would be grateful if they contributed a donation or purchased on of my other titles.
I want people to be free to use the e-book in whichever way they choose, including putting it up for download on their own site, or emailing it to whoever they like. The only restriction I want to place is that they do not charge for it.
I know very little about copyright, and I could do with some advice here.
What I was thinking of was to put a note at the start of the PDF where the copyright notice usually is, saying something like this (this is a rough first attempt):
Free PDF Edition
This e-book is freeware. This means you are free to copy it, distribute it, and use it in whichever way you choose. You can put it up on your site for download, you can email it to whoever you like. All I ask is that you do not attempt to profit from the sale of it. I would like this information to be freely available to anybody who wants to learn about digital self-publishing. If you find this e-book useful, I would be extremely grateful if you could come to my site and make a donation. Doing so will help to cover part of the costs of producing this e-book, as well as help pay me for my time. If this payment model is successful, it will allow me to produce further work this way.
Are there any issues with doing this that I am not aware of?
Do I still need to put "Copyright 2011 David Gaughran" at the start? Or should I not put that?
Does this affect my ability to assert copyright over the Kindle version (which I am charging for and which will be virtually identical)?
Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.
Dave
