Your manuscript is finished. Now comes the part nobody warns you about: the paperwork that sits between a finished book and a published one. Three things cause most of the confusion. Copyright, which you already have and cannot buy. ISBNs, which you do have to buy. And legal deposit, which is a legal duty rather than a courtesy, and which catches out a surprising number of self-publishers every year.

Here is what UK law and library practice actually require, and what you can safely ignore.

Copyright is yours from the moment you write it

Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, copyright in a literary work arises automatically as soon as it is recorded in some form. A Word file counts. So does a notebook, a typescript, or an email you sent to yourself at two in the morning. There is no application, no fee and no official certificate.

In the UK, copyright in a literary work lasts for the author's life plus seventy years. It protects the expression of your ideas rather than the ideas themselves, which is why two novelists can both write about a detective in a rain-soaked northern town without either infringing the other.

Points worth knowing:

• If you write in the course of employment, your employer normally owns the copyright unless your contract says otherwise. Freelance contracts sometimes contain a similar clause buried in the terms.
• Owning a manuscript, or buying one at auction, does not transfer copyright. The two are separate.
• A copyright line — the © symbol, your name and the year — has no legal force in the UK, but it puts ownership on the record and helps if you ever need to chase misuse.
• Keep dated drafts and version histories. If a dispute ever arises, evidence of when you created the work usually matters more than any notice you printed.
• Moral rights belong to you: the right to be identified as the author, and the right to object to derogatory treatment of your work. The right to be identified generally has to be asserted in writing to be relied on.

Do you need to register copyright anywhere?

Not in the UK. There is no official register, and services charging a fee for "copyright registration" are not creating rights you did not already hold. The old trick of posting a copy to yourself is unreliable and carries little weight. Dated files, a trustworthy witness and a clear copyright line do more good.

What copyright does and does not cover

Copyright gives you the exclusive right to copy, publish, adapt, distribute and license your work. It gives you nothing at all over anyone else's. If your novel quotes a song lyric, reproduces a poem, or prints a photograph you found online, you need permission from the rights holder — usually in writing, and usually before your print deadline rather than after.

UK law has fair dealing exceptions for criticism and review, quotation, reporting current events and private study. They are narrower than many writers assume, and quoting a line is a very different act from reprinting a page. Always credit your sources properly, and always be able to show where permission came from.

Publishing contracts are where copyright gets interesting, because they either assign rights (transferring them) or license them (lending them for a period). Before signing, check the territory, the formats covered, the length of the term, the subsidiary rights, and whether there is a reversion clause if the book goes out of print. If any of that is unclear, take advice from a solicitor or a professional authors' body before you sign.

ISBNs: one number per format

An ISBN is a thirteen-digit identifier for one specific edition and format of a book. It is not copyright and it is not a licence. Its job is to let booksellers, distributors and libraries order the right product without guessing.

The rules are tidier than most people expect:

• One ISBN per format. Paperback, hardback, EPUB and audiobook each need their own.
• A substantially new edition needs a new ISBN. A reprint with a corrected typo does not.
• An ebook needs its own ISBN even when the text is identical to the print edition.
• The number appears on the imprint or copyright page and, for print editions, as a barcode on the back cover.

How to get one

1. Work out how many formats you plan to publish now, and how many books you might publish over the next few years. Numbers are sold in blocks, and the price per ISBN falls sharply as the block gets bigger.
2. Apply to Nielsen BookData, the ISBN agency for the UK and Ireland. Buy direct rather than accepting a free ISBN from a self-publishing platform, because a free number usually means the platform is registered as the publisher of record on your book.
3. Supply the title, author, format, publisher name, price and planned publication date so the record is accurate from the start.
4. Register the title in Nielsen's bibliographic database. An ISBN that is not attached to proper metadata is invisible to the trade, no matter how good the book is.
5. Place the barcode on the back cover with clear space around it, and check a printed proof before you approve the full run.

Legal deposit: six libraries, one free copy

Legal deposit is a statutory requirement, and it applies to self-publishers exactly as it applies to large houses. Under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, and the non-print regulations that followed in 2013, published works must be offered to a network of six libraries:

• The British Library
• The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
• Cambridge University Library
• The National Library of Scotland
• The National Library of Wales
• Trinity College Dublin

The practical sequence is straightforward. Send a copy of every print publication to the British Library, normally within one month of publication. The other five libraries may claim a copy, usually within twelve months; when they ask, you must supply one. Copies should match the edition you are selling and arrive in good condition.

Non-print legal deposit covers ebooks, ejournals and UK websites. Material collected this way is generally accessible only on library premises rather than freely over the internet, which reassures most authors. If you publish digitally and nowhere else, it is worth checking current guidance from the British Library, as practice has evolved since the regulations came into force.

Depositing copies has no effect on your copyright. Separately, register for Public Lending Right, which pays authors when their books are borrowed from public libraries — registration is free and administered by the British Library.

None of the above is legal advice. If a contract, a rights dispute or a significant sum of money is involved, speak to a solicitor or a professional authors' organisation.

A short pre-publication checklist

• Confirm you own the rights, with no employer claim or co-author agreement left unresolved.
• Obtain written permission for anything quoted, reproduced or adapted from someone else's work.
• Buy ISBNs direct from Nielsen, one per format, and register complete metadata for each.
• Print a copyright page with the © line, the year and the edition details.
• Send a copy to the British Library within a month of publication, and respond to claims from the other five libraries.
• Register for Public Lending Right, and keep the confirmation.
• Read every contract properly, and get advice before signing.

Copyright looks after itself. ISBNs are admin you can finish in an afternoon. Legal deposit takes one parcel and a stamp. Sort those three, and the only thing left to worry about is whether anyone buys the book.

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