This is perhaps a totally random comment, but it's a question I had myself. Before I sent out stuff I'd written I was worried about someone ripping me off. The question I asked people I knew who knew was what could I do to insure that I got credit for writing what I'D written. What they told me was honestly surprising. First, if you go to untoward lengths to protect yourself it can actually sour publishers toward your work. It makes their life more difficult in terms of getting the rights and they tend to feel upset by the distrustful attitude of the author, but there are things you can do. The easiest way to verify that your work is yours is to seal a copy of it in an envelope and then mail it to yourself registered mail. When it arrives do NOT open, but keep the sealed envelope for your records. If anyone ever tries to rip you off this is generaly enough proof to stand up in court, if you need to sue someone. It's really easy to do and anyone thinking of publishing should do it before they start shipping their stuff around. Good Luck!

Few more points about security, although that mailing it to yourself is very wise.

-remember to be very careful in discussions with publishers. If you discuss an idea openly before making sure it's yours (or without Confidentiality Agreement), you disclose it (so you can't patent it, if it was an invention) and it can become publicly owned, making it difficult to prove your ownership of it.
-If you in a discussion seem to agree even verbally to give your Intellectual Property Rights to the company, it is incredibly difficult to make it clear that that was not what you wanted to do.
-Copyright is always yours, but that doesn't always give full protection or isolation, it's fairly easy to go around.


There's a story about a man who had a really good idea, and he found someone who was interested in financing it. He travelled all the way across the coutry to meet this financer. But in the meeting, the financer refused to sign confidentiality agreement. He just said "What are you going to do? Go home without telling me your idea?" And the man said "Yes" and left without telling the financer the idea.

If someone gets upset about confidentiality agreement when discussing a new possible project with the author, there's always reason to think "why are they so upset about it?" Maybe the answer is "because they want to steal your idea."

However, If your are dealing with a reputable, well-established company, overly distrustful behavior WILL sour them toward a professional relationship with you. Keep in mind that if, say Random House got a reputation for ripping off their authors, there would not be a great number of authors willing to do business with them. Publishing companies are not ignorant of this. In general, ripping people off, though there are a great number of anecdotes and stories, is actually very rare thing and generally between and among individuals rather than by big companies when it does happen.