Securing the Rights to Written Material

I'd like a brief, easy explanation about securing the rights to a written work; I would look it up, but it may be easier just to get a quick, easy answer from someone here.

I understand that copyrights are for art, literature, films, and all of that sort of stuff, and that trademarks are for names/symbols and the like; so, does that mean you can copyright the book itself and trademark the title (To be used in future books/whatever)? And if you copyright a book, would you have to individually copyright each related book (In other words, sequel?) And, if you do copyright the material, does this secure the rights for all media adaptations, or is it possible to secure the rights to each potential future media adaptation individually? And how does submitting work to a publisher work in to this?

I'm pretty much clueless as to how this works. Any explanation would be greatly appreciated.

About all I know is that once its written/created the work is protected under copyright laws. I do know that names/titles are not subject to copyright laws, though not sure how a trademark fully works.

Though if you were to send to a publisher, I would suggest getting an agent. If you can get one to take you on, then they can help you get published. If you live in the US this might be a useful place for copyright issues. U.S. Copyright Office

Though if you dont live in the US you might have to look for your countries equivilant(not sure how it works in other countries and such)

I'm sure it changes from country to country, but in the U.S:
Any piece of intellectual property is automatically protected under copyright law. If you write a poem and put your name on it before anyone else does, it's yours. Same goes for books, art, and anything else defined as intellectual property. You can trademark any original title so long as it isn't a single word (otherwise you'd be trademarking a word, which could cause some complications in use of said word). The creator owns the rights of a work and can do whatever he/she want with it, but if you want a filmmaker to make a book you wrote, you'll need to give him/her the rights.
What happens with screenplays is the screenwriter uses "options," which is where a film company buys the rights to a screenplay for a certain amount of time (usually about 2 years). In that time the film company can make a movie from your screenplay, but when it runs out you get the rights back and can option it to either the same or another company for another 2 years or so.
I guess the answer to your question is that you do not need to re-secure rights to your own work to adapt it.

Just a side note: I think proof of creation is important. For example my composer friends will sometimes mail themselves a copy of the newly printed score and keep it unopened. Thus the postage date is indisputable along with the score sealed inside the unopened package. This a "poor man's" copy write of sorts.

Yeah, that's an old trick for proof of time, though you'll only need it to sue or defend from a lawsuit. By the way, you can write (c) [your name/organization] on any piece of work without a publisher or anything of that sort to protect yourself. Copy writing is technically free, its licensing, trademarking, publishing, and patenting that costs money.

Alright, I now have a question about internet domain names. How do copyrights and domain name ownership work together?

They're independent of each other. You have to pay for a domain name, I'm not sure where, whereas copyrights you just get by putting your name on your work (it helps to put (c) name 20xx at the bottom, too). You can, on the other hand, trademark your domain name (the .com/.net/.org/etc included or not) at a copyright office (I guess they're technically called patent offices, but we're not talking about patents. Someone pointed out mailing your work to yourself and not opening it to get the date stamp. You can do it more officially and admittedly more expensively at these places). The thing about domain names is once you secure it, it is not illegal, but impossible for someone else to take it.