how do I patent a book Idea?

1: You don't get a book "patented."

2: Everything written is copyrighted the second it's written. The only debate comes when someone else claims they own the copyrights for the same work as what you've (supposedly) produced. In other words, by publishing a book you almost guarantee yourself the copyright of your work. (Like I said, it can still be disputed.)

3: You have a book idea and you've never written before, so you want a ghost writer? I'll ghost write for you, honey. We're not cheap, because we know you can't do it on your own. But if I were you, I'd write it myself. Expect to spend real money for each word of the final draft -- anywhere from 3 cents to 25 cents, depending on who you're striking a deal with. Rich people get ghost writers, and they're genuinely lazy and pathetic.

4: You can't keep other people from using your idea. You can dispute their copyright claim, however... if you have a lot of money to hand over to the government and some fancy lawyers.

5: And my favorite: You don't find ghost writers... they find you.

-Cook Colburn

You can't patent the idea for a book. If you try, I will hunt you down and beat you with a copy of the civil law of whichever country you live in.

Having a unique idea is not so important as writing it well, with believable and interesting characters.

I have no idea how you find a ghost writer, but I imagine it starts with typing "ghost writer" into Google and sifting through the results. The good ones will want paying upfront, because they won't expect the book to sell particularly well, or at all. People who hire ghost writers tend to be those who are already famous for something else, so their name will do a lot of the work of selling the book. You aren't famous (if you were, you wouldn't be asking this question on Yahoo Answers), so you have a lot more work ahead of you if you want the book to sell.

EDIT: You can't copyright ideas either. You can copyright a book that you wrote based on some ideas that you thought of, but you can't stop people from taking the ideas in that book and writing their own book based on them. Look at all the vampire romance books that are infesting our bookshops lately, for example. Before that, it was (boarding) schools for wizards. Before that, it was rip-offs of The Da Vinci Code. And so on...

You can't "patent" a book idea. Patents are for inventions. Copyrights are for written works, and you can only copyright something once you've written it.

"Ideas" are a dime a dozen. Give ten different writers the same jumping-off point, and you'll get ten different stories. Execution is what counts.

Your idea has probably been used before. You can't "patent" the idea...you can copyright the actual book (Or exact plot line) You want a ghost writer? Seriously? Laaaazy.

Check out my blog?http://mythoughtsonlifeandothervariousthings.blogs...

There is no patent for book ideas. You have to write a book and then copyright it to own the idea.

If you want to find a ghost writer you have to canvas for one... be careful about who you trust with your idea.

If your idea have technical character, for example, new model of book reading device, then it can be patented.

From my experience, i recommend you a free ABCpatent software for patenting purposes. I saved 4000 $ on patenting with this software. Because most work you do by yourself, and then send this draft to ABCpatent attorney. He will edit it, and you receive a professionally edited Utility Patent Application.

Hope this helped.

Books are protected by copyright, not by patent. You can't copyright an idea; you can only copyright an actual piece of writing -- poem, short story, play, novel, whatever -- based on that idea.

A web search on "copyright law" will give you all the information you need. If U.S. copyright law is what you're interested in, look here:

http://www.copyright.gov/

You can't. The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail tried to take Dan Brown to court for stealing their "idea" (in the Da Vinci Code) and the judge ruled you could not patent ideas.

write the book, get it published and then your agent will get it copyrighted, you go to a patent lawyer