Trademarking Books - Would You, Could You, Should You?

Trademarking. It's been going on a lot lately in our little indie world. Authors trying to trademark and own everything to shut down competition. There's a huge thread on Kboards, already, but perhaps there were things over there you wanted to say, but couldn't, or did say and got deleted? If you care to repeat them for posterity - you may.

In my head I have my own universe and one day, maybe, I'll actually write and publish it. And when I do, if my stuff is popular enough, there will likely be peeps who are inspired and who do their own versions. I won't mind if they do. At least, I don't think I'll mind. No one will ever write anything exactly like me, unless they plagiarize, which is a whole other issue. 100,000,000 people could all write the same story, yet they would still all be different because each author would be different. Unless, like I said, they're plagiarizing. Plagiarizing is wrong and must be stopped no matter what. But copying/being inspired by others and doing similar things is just normal authorship and good business.

None of us are 100% original, anyway. We all get inspired by other artists/authors/stories and then we expand them and add our own original expression. And if you're a write-to-market apostle then you're specifically told to copy the genre template for your book covers.

Certain authors are getting all possessive of their babies and getting irritated by all the other books that look and sound like theirs, and they want to stop those other authors from doing what they've already done. Yes, dear authors, readers do know how to read the author name. And if they accidentally buy the wrong book that's on them. When it comes to branding, I feel like authors need to focus on branding themselves and cementing their relationships with their readers, rather than trying to chase away any authors who write too similarly or who use similar covers and titles.

So my answer to the thread title is - no, I wouldn't trademark - copyright is good enough. Could I? Possibly, but that's irrelevant. And no, I shouldn't. I don't really have a problem with peeps trademarking things that are truly original, if they want to. But if your book title has already been used hundreds of times or is a genre trope - just don't. If you don't want competition then stay out of the trendy niches.

To be fair, this is all easy for me to say and perhaps it's ignorant and wrong. I'm not a huge millions-making author. I'm sure everything looks different when you're up at the top, and I'm sure there are times when trademarking makes sense and is the smart move. These are just my incessant ramblings shared with you because I have a forum and I can. Mwahahahahah

If you have thoughts you'd like to share - speak up in reply box below!