Why you should always register your copyrights yourself + free legal webinar

Plus more news and fiction: Lessons

Headline

The Anthropic class-action lawsuit has been in all my discussion groups and newsletters this week. One key point: the judge determined that a book must have been registered with the US Copyright Office. Authors are discovering, to their dismay, that their publishers never registered the copyrights! This isn’t just the new hybrid or small publishers, either. Those authors will be ineligible for compensation through that lawsuit.

You can easily see if your book(s) are registered by going to copyright.gov and doing a search by author or title in public records.

As an indie, I always register my copyrights myself. As I wrote this, I checked a few public records, including my own. I need to figure out how to correct the title of my new book! Love, War, & Ghosts was dropped! (I hope I didn’t do it.) That goes on the Action list. So does emailing a friend whose best-selling book didn’t show.

(Update 9:18 AM: Duh. No one made a mistake. I forgot I had registered the screenplay as All for One last year.)

While it’s true your work is copyrighted as soon as you put it into tangible form, the Anthropic suit highlights the main reason for registering your copyrights: it’s better protection when there’s an issue. It’s not expensive and it’s not difficult. You register online and send a “best copy” for the Library of Congress. Copyright.gov has lots of information starting with “What is copyright?”

Also, California Lawyers for the Arts is offering a FREE Zoom event, Legal 101 Protect Your Creative work, on Tuesday, October 14, 2025 from 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (presumably Pacific Time). As of this writing, there are 471 spaces left.

Writers

Language

Thanks to Sheryn Smith for pointing out that the Cambridge Dictionary now includes such terms as skibidi, tradwife, delulu, and a few thousand other terms commonly used on social media platforms. They also added terms such as “mouse jiggler” and “forever chemical” to their database of more than 2 billion English words.

Selling short fiction

If you’re trying to sell short fiction to literary magazines, Erika Krouse ranks them.

Classes

I used to work with a critique group run by C. Alex Smith. She always gave good critique and had other useful information. She’s now offering writing courses covering all aspects of creative writing from brainstorming the initial idea, to writing the query letter or self-publishing for just $5/month. She’s got 31 posted for free. See if they’re right for you.

Call to Action

Did anyone spend the weekend writing for the Furious Fiction challenge? With or without registering? I was helping my son move and treading water on my writing and editing projects. Let us know in the comments if you gave it a try.

Calling for books to review! Use the contact form on my website to submit a pitch for your book and a link to its sales page - preferably where I can read a sample. Include your contact information so I can let you know if I want a full copy of the book to read. Full details are in the August 25, 2025 newsletter.

Meanwhile, my old blog has several reviews archived.

Sheri’s News

Marketing

I let Amazon set my targets for my first Sponsored Product Ad campaign - and didn’t get a single click. Good news is that means I didn’t spend a single penny. Next time, I will definitely set my own targets!

On September 14th, Alice will be on a listicle “Fall into a Good Book” promoted to the Bargain Booksy email list. We’ll see how that goes. The KDP Kindle Countdown on All for One - Love, War, & Ghosts boosted sales a bit. KU readers have yet to discover my books. Working on it.

I’m supposed to be a guest on Bookable Space Saturday 9/13, but that timing is not definite yet. We’re considering delaying until the audio book launch. I’ll send out an update & link later this week, if it is 9/13.

Audio Book

The audio book hit pause for a few days, but we’re hoping our schedules agree long enough to make some needed revisions this week, before I have to return to AZ. There weren’t many errors, but I’m not entirely happy with some of my delivery.

Readers

Thank you to Heather Dodge Martin for her suggestion (see comments on last week’s post)! While I could not do the Furious Fiction challenge this month, I did copy the parameters and am busily NOT thinking about them. When I have 55 hours to make writing that story a priority, I will do so and post it here, even though it’s too late for the challenge. Then, per Heather’s suggestion, I’ll let it sit a week, do revisions to polish it, and post that so you can see the difference.

This is a flash fiction piece I wrote for a Furious Fiction challenge. I can’t tell you what the parameters were anymore, but it’s a nice little scene that might make it into a novel some day.

Lessons

“Ok, it’s empty. Step straight forward. I’m right with you.”

Roddy’s elbow was firmly clutched in her hand. Of course he’s with me. Claudia held her breath and took three small steps forward, thumping her white-tipped stick against the floor. It sounded hollow compared to the hallway.

She forced herself to let go of his arm and turned around. Left foot leading, one-two-three, like a waltz, ninety degrees. One-two-three one hundred and eighty degrees to face the entrance. As she steadied herself, the door thumped shut with a ding.

Roddy had pushed the button to take them to the third floor. Her heart raced as she struggled to adjust to the lift's movement. Knees, don’t lock my knees. There was a slight up, down motion before they stopped moving. She took a deep breath. “Next time, I need to push the button myself.”

Flustered, Roddy apologized and touched her arm. “Do you want to push it to go back down? We can go up and down as many times as you want to practice.”

Claudia nodded. “As long as we’re the only ones.”

He guided her to the right and helped her find the buttons marked lobby and 3. “And this one,” He moved her hand slightly. “The one that sticks out, that’s in case of emergency, if you get stuck.”

“I should always move to this side when I get on the lift.” She fingered over the panel and pushed the correct button to send them to the lobby.

“Well done!” Roddy gave her a hug, then backed away as he knew she preferred. “Then take us back to three.”

By their tenth trip up to the third floor, Claudia was breathing easily, her body comfortable with the lift's movements. “I can do this. The hallway to my apartment will be easy.” She reached out and found Roddy’s arm. “Your help has been invaluable, Roddy. You are the best friend ever.”