So I’m working my way through the Smashwords Style Guide, and I’m surprised to discover that they want me to put a long warning about copyright infringement at the beginning of my e-books.
I’m reminded of the FBI warning at the beginning of video movies, the ones I used to fast-forward through before DVDs came along and made that impossible. I’ve often wondered how many movie pirates read that warning and said, “Oh no! Better not copy or sell this. That’s against the law.”
So I put all this extended copyright stuff at the front of my short story, Fire Retardant, and all I’ve accomplished is cluttering up the story preview–you know, the sample the buyer can check out before they take the 99 cent plunge. Potential purchasers spend more time reading a copyright notice than my brilliant words. That’s gonna change.
A quick survey of other e-books on my Sony proves that even Random House puts this stuff at the back, but I’m wondering if there’s even a better way: how about in the meta-data? I’m going to check out the mobi e-pub software and see if I can stick this into the meta data when I generate the stories in Kindle format. I would still put a copyright date with my name at the beginning, but not a long notice.
I’m guessing that the whole concept of putting copyright at the front began because in print books the first page is on the right anyway, so you might as well stick all that copyright notice stuff on the left side. But in e-books that makes it the first page, which is probably why most publishers are switching it to the last page.
Makes sense to me. Hey Smashwords! You guys getting this?
