The third way the Library of Congress may be involved in your book is through the U.S. Copyright Office, which is located within the Library of Congress. In the previous two posts about the Library of Congress we discussed the LCCN and the CIP data.

Copyright Registration

Registering your book with the copyright office has nothing to do with the LCCN, the CIP data, or with cataloging your book. Therefore, getting an LCCN or CIP data for your book from the Library of Congress does not amount to copyright registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. If you so choose, Wheatmark can secure copyright registration for your book, or you can apply for one yourself directly.

Keep in mind that registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office does not establishyour copyright for your book; rather, it confirms it. Your work is already under copyright protection whether you register it or not. Once you have finished writing your original work, nobody else has the “right to copy” it, therefore you already enjoy copyright protection in the U.S. Wheatmark will print “Copyright © 2007 Jane Doe” on the copyright page of your book in your name whether you want it registered officially or not.

We have been discussing the Library of Congress’s role in the publication of your book. Today we will discuss the CIP data.

Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) Data

Because current cataloging data will not be available by the time your book is released, the Library of Congress provides a shortened, barebones cataloging copy to publishers so that they could print that in the book in advance. CIP data, a bibliographic record based on the subject and content of your book, allows libraries to easily catalog your book. This way when librarians receive your newly published book, there will be already enough information in the book for them, even though the Library of Congress hasn’t yet created the definitive cataloging data.

When you publish your book with Wheatmark, we can provide cataloging-in-publication data for your book and include it on the copyright page. Your CIP data will be prepared by professional catalogers.

Finally, the Library of Congress provides yet another service to authors and publishers: copyright registration. We’ll take a look at this tomorrow.

“Will you send my book to the Library of Congress?”

This is a question we often hear from our authors. The answer is yes – unless we misunderstood your question.

Let me explain.

The Library of Congress may be involved in several different aspects of your book’s publication. The first one is the LCCN.

LCCN — The Library of Congress Control Number

Local librarians want to be able to shelve a new book correctly as soon as they receive it. They do not have the time to catalog every single book upon receipt, so they turn to the Library of Congress (LOC) for help. They connect to the library’s database and download the cataloging data that has been prepared by the LOC’s catalogers. To find the data, they use the LCCN that’s printed in your book.

Thus, before your book is published, Wheatmark applies for an LCCN from the Library of Congress. This number is then printed in your book, so that when a librarian needs to know how to shelve it, he or she will be able to look it up in the Library of Congress.

Once your book is published, Wheatmark will send the finished copy to the Library of Congress to be cataloged. The cataloger will check the finished book against the LCCN and prepare the cataloging data for the library’s database. This is when your book really gets cataloged; up till now it’s only had a “control number” (LCCN).

So far, so good.

The problem is that the Library of Congress has a tremendous backlog and so it is likely that when your local librarian receives a copy of your new book, the cataloging data is not yet available for download. To top it off, the LOC does not guarantee that it will catalog every book that it receives.

Fortunately, there is a remedy: advance cataloging-in-publication (CIP) data. We’ll take a look at this tomorrow.

If you’re just beginning your research into publishing companies, don’t be surprised if you stumble across a number of unfamiliar words or concepts.

Initially, you may be put off by these terms. But, please – for the sake of your book – don’t be!

Now that writers have become self-publishers, it’s important to learn some of the vocabulary of traditional publishers.

Today’s publishing word? Returnability. What does it mean? And why should you care?

In layman’s terms, returnability means “whether or not a bookstore can return books to a publisher that they cannot sell.”

Now, let’s pretend for a moment that instead of writing books, you sell books in a lovely little neighborhood bookshop. Every writer in your town dreams of walking into your store and finding her book inside.

Needless to say, you’re inundated on a daily basis with requests from publishers to stock their writers’ books.

How do you, the bookstore owner, decide which books to carry? Since you don’t have time to read all of the books yourself to judge their quality, you have to come up with another criterion.

A good one to use would be returnability, because the financial future of your little bookshop depends on it.

If a publisher whose books you like offers full returnability, your bookstore won’t assume any financial risk by choosing to stock those books.

If the books don’t sell, you simply return them to the publisher at the publisher’s expense.

You – the bookstore owner who’s interested in staying in business – would be wise to choose only to stock books that come with full returnability attached to them by their publisher.

So what does this mean to you, the writer?

Quite simply, it means that you must make sure your publishing company offers full returnability on your book.

Without returnability, your book won’t make it onto shelves – and how will your readers find it then?