I've just written a book based on fiction. What do I do next? Do I need to get it copyrighted before I send it off to different publishers. Do I need an ISBN number now or does that come later? What exactly do I need to do what is the process? Thanks

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I'm not very experienced in this area, but if I were you, I would copyright before sending it, just so it belongs to you no matter what happens with the publishers. You can never be too careful :)

I'm not sure what you should do, but I know that I would copyright anything before I sent it off to anyone that I didn't know personally. You have to be prepared and know that people may not respect your work and may try to steal it, so I'd copyright it now. The ISBN is part of the bar code I believe, so I think that's up to the publishing company to put that there.

you should find an agent

It is not necessary BUT COPYRIGHT RIGHT AWAY, YOU WANT CREDIT DON'T YOU!!! I don't know the process but you do need to as soon as it is done. Or if you aren't up to it, mail copies of you work to yourself on special order so a date will be put on it so you can prove you wrote it at a certain time.

If you write it, it IS copyrighted, you don't need to do anything. No major publisher could survive by stealing submitted works and aliening authors. If you're worried, you can submit it to the Library of Congress for a $45 fee. See http://www.copyright.gov/ The ISBN is assigned when the book is published. Part of the ISBN denotes the publisher, so there's no way to assign it without one.

Agents and publishers are not necessarily bad people. You shouldn't have to worry about sending your work to them. They are not going to steal it. If you are worrying this much about it, then do you really need to send it away? There is a website entitled Preditors and Editors that keeps a list of agents and publishers they don't recommend, whether it is because they have proof of them stealing something or other fraud or whatever. Check out anyone on there before you prepare to send anything out. The sad fact of the matter is, "poor man's copyright" (mailing yourself a copy of your completed manuscript) will do you no good in a court if your work is stolen by some unscrupulous person. It just proves you had that work at a certain time, when, usually the copyright infringement would have occurred before that time anyway. Your work, as long as you wrote it yourself, is protected under law until it is published. I have provided a few websites for you to look at.