Book Copyright Page in Germany: Impressum Requirements + Free Generator

What the German Impressum Holds

German books carry an imprint block called the Impressum, on the verso of the title page in a print book and usually at the end of an ebook. It names who stands behind the book and how to reach them, and sits together with the copyright lines. For a translated title it also names the original work and the rights in the German-language edition.

Two separate duties sit behind this page: printing the imprint in the book, and legal deposit, a delivery of copies to the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek that only concerns publishers based in Germany. One is ink on the page, the other is a shipment.

What Is Legally Required

For a printed book, each German state has a press law with a nearly identical imprint rule (a representative text is § 8 of the Baden-Württemberg press law). It asks for:

• The publisher's name and postal address. For a self-published book, that is your own name and address: the law asks only for a name and an address; it does not specify you need a German address, though it should be a real street address rather than a PO box.
• The printer's name and address.

If you would rather not print your home address or your real name, some German services offer a legal forwarding address that seems to be accepted in Germany (this one, for example, costs €4.50 a month).

The printer line mostly takes care of itself. If you print through KDP or IngramSpark, as most self-publishers do, the service adds its own page stating where each copy was printed, so you can leave the printer field empty. Only if you hire a printer directly do you name them yourself, in the conventional "Druck und Bindung" line.

Since December 2024 the EU General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) adds its own mentions for print books sold in the EU:

• Your name, postal address and a contact email.
• If you are based outside the EU: the name and contact details of an EU-established responsible person, who takes product-safety responsibility for the book.

These GPSR duties fall on the manufacturer of the book, and with print-on-demand the manufacturer is the print service, not you, as the responsible-person section below explains.

Whether a state press law reaches a self-publisher who lives abroad and prints through Amazon is genuinely unsettled, with no case law either way. In practice you should include the imprint anyway: it costs nothing, the product safety rules independently require most of it, and German readers and trade expect it.

Do You Need an EU Responsible Person?

For most self-publishers, no. Print-on-demand services are the printer and manufacturer of the books they produce, so GPSR compliance is theirs to handle. We asked Amazon directly, and KDP support answered in writing that you do not need to do anything (their reply came in French; the translation is ours):

For KDP paperback and hardcover books, Amazon is the printer and the manufacturer. [...] You do not need to designate an EU responsible person for your KDP books. [...] The responsible person and manufacturer details are displayed on the Amazon product detail page itself, in the "Product safety and resources" section. They appear on the product listing, not in the book. [...] You do not need to add GPSR information to your copyright page.

IngramSpark does the same automatically for any book it is the exclusive printer of, though that cover falls away if the same ISBN is also printed elsewhere. If you print through another service, ask them how they handle the GPSR before publishing; they most likely take care of it the same way.

The picture only changes if you arrange your own printing through a traditional printer. You are then the manufacturer, so the Impressum should carry your contact email and, if you are based outside the EU, the name and address of an EU-established responsible person. Check "I'm arranging my own printing (not using print-on-demand)" in the generator below to add these lines. If you do not know anyone in the EU to name, dedicated responsible-person services offer a contact for a yearly fee. For perspective, we could not find an instance of any authority in Germany or elsewhere in the EU fining or prosecuting an indie author over a missing responsible person; the realistic exposure is a marketplace removing a listing.

Ebooks are not covered by this obligation, so this tool adds the GPSR lines to the print format only.

What Is Optional

Everything else on the page is publishing convention rather than law. Copyright protection is automatic in Germany, so these lines document ownership without creating it:

• The © line, such as "© 2026 Author".
• The "Alle Rechte vorbehalten" notice, short or with the longer boilerplate.
• The edition line, such as "1. Auflage 2026".
• The ISBN, a trade requirement rather than a legal one.
• For a translated book: the original-edition line ("Die Originalausgabe erschien unter dem Titel …") and a second © line for the German-language edition, alongside the one for the original work.

The "Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek" paragraph you may know from trade books is optional too, and only fits when the title actually receives an entry in the national bibliography, which a foreign self-published book normally does not. Leave it off.

Do You Have to Send Copies to the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek?

For most self-publishers, and unless based in Germany, no. Legal deposit is a duty to deliver copies to the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, not something printed in the book. Under § 15 of the DNBG it falls on publishers with a seat, an establishment or their main residence in Germany, so if you self-publish from abroad you have nothing to send. The library still welcomes voluntary copies if you want your German edition in the national collection.

If you live in Germany and publish your own book, the duty does apply to you: two copies, delivered unprompted within a week of publication, with an electronic deposit allowed for print runs under 25 copies, which covers most print-on-demand titles. Ebooks are deposited once through the DNB portal.

Print-on-Demand: KDP and IngramSpark

Two cautions for the print-on-demand route. Amazon must not be named as the publisher: you or your imprint are the publisher, and Amazon is only the printing service. And neither KDP nor IngramSpark deposits your book at the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, so a voluntary deposit is yours to make if you want one.