What Goes on a Copyright Page? (Every Element, Explained)

A copyright page carries the copyright notice, the publisher's name and address, the ISBN, the edition or printing line, and any disclaimers or credits. It sits on the back of the title page, always. Very little of it is legally required, and several of the elements authors treat as mandatory are pure convention.

The page has several names. American style calls it the copyright page. New Hart's Rules calls it the title page verso and notes it is "also, variously, called the copyright, biblio, or imprint page". They are all the same leaf: page iv of the book.

The Elements

"All rights reserved." Conventional, not operative. It survives from the Buenos Aires Convention, which required a rights reservation statement. Copyright today does not depend on it, and omitting it costs you nothing.

Publisher name and address. Along with the imprint, if the publisher uses one.

ISBN. The ISBN Users' Manual is specific about presentation: when printed, the number "is always preceded by the letters 'ISBN'", and it should be set at 9 point or larger. Each format needs its own ISBN, and the convention is to list them with the format in parentheses, for example ISBN 978-951-45-9693-3 (hardback). Whether you need one at all is decided by distribution rather than by having self published, which is covered in do I need an ISBN to self publish.

Edition and printing line. The descending row of numbers, 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. The lowest number showing is the printing you are holding. Printers strike off the lowest digit at each new print run, so a second printing reads 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2.

Cataloguing data. In the United States this is either a CIP block or an LCCN, and the two are not the same thing. More on that below.

Disclaimer. For fiction, the standard statement that names, characters and incidents are products of the author's imagination.

Credits and permissions. Cover designer, illustrator, and copyright acknowledgements for any quoted material. If you used an epigraph from a copyrighted work, its permission credit belongs here.

Country of manufacture. Discussed below, because the rule is the opposite of what most authors assume.

The Three Things Most Guides Get Wrong

CIP and PCN are different programmes, and self-publishers can only use one. Cataloging-in-Publication data is the block prepared by the Library of Congress before publication. Self-publishers are explicitly ineligible: the Library states that "authors and editors who pay for or subsidize publication of their own works are ineligible", and separately excludes "books published on demand", which rules out the print-on-demand channel entirely. What self-publishers can get is a Preassigned Control Number. The Library of Congress PCN programme specifies exactly how it is printed: "Library of Congress Control Number: 2019012345". The two programmes are mutually exclusive.

An LCCN has nothing to do with copyright registration. The Library of Congress states it plainly: "There is no relationship between the PCN Program and Copyright registration." An LCCN helps libraries catalogue your book. It does not register, create, or strengthen your copyright.

"Printed in the United States of America" is not required. US customs regulations compel a country-of-origin statement on imported goods, not domestic ones. A book printed in the US carries the line by convention only. A book printed abroad and imported does need marking, and books are not on the exemption list.

Two further points that catch people out. If you take a free ISBN from a print-on-demand platform, that platform is generally listed as the publisher in ISBN databases, which is why a free KDP ISBN produces the imprint "Independently published". And if a library issues you CIP data, New Hart's Rules is blunt that it "may not be altered in any way, even if it contains errors, without the written permission of the issuing library".

British books add two elements American ones do not: an assertion of the author's moral rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the printer's name and location, which New Hart's Rules states "must be included on the title page verso".

Building One in Deckle

Add a Copyright page from the + button at the top of the Binder, under Front Matter. Position it directly after your title page, since order in the Binder is order in the book.

Deckle ships three copyright presets: Simple, which is the copyright line alone, Full Legal, which adds the standard all-rights-reserved paragraph, and Creative Commons. There is a toggle for whether the year appears. Anything beyond the preset, such as your ISBN, disclaimer, printer statement or permission credits, is typed into the page like ordinary text.

Common Mistakes

Assuming you need CIP data. If you are self-publishing you are not eligible. Use a PCN, or nothing at all.
Believing an LCCN protects your copyright. It does not. Copyright exists on creation.
Adding "Printed in the USA" because other books have it. Harmless, but not required.
Reusing one ISBN across formats. Paperback, hardback and ebook each need their own.
Editing a CIP block to fix a typo. Not permitted without the issuing library's written permission.
Putting the copyright page anywhere but the title page verso. This is the one placement no authority disputes.

FAQ

Q: Do I have to register my copyright for the notice to be valid? A: No. Copyright arises automatically when the work is fixed. Registration is a separate, optional step that affects what you can claim in a dispute.

Q: What year do I put? A: The year of first publication. Later printings of the same edition keep the original year.

Q: Where do permission credits for quotations go? A: On the copyright page for short credits. If they run long, they can become a separate copyright acknowledgements section, which may sit in the front matter or the back.

Q: Does an ebook need a copyright page? A: Yes, and note that digital editions often move it. New Hart's Rules observes that digital versions "may differ from print in having items in a different order (moving copyright information to the back, for example)".