Industry News Home

The Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) has announced the 2025 Dwarf Stars Award winners. The Dwarf Stars honor the best speculative poem of one to ten lines published in the previous year.

• WINNER: “Perish and Live Forever”, Pedro Iniguez (Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future)
• Second Place: “[old junkyard]”, Ngô Bình Anh Khoa (Star*Line Spring ’24)
• Third Place: “[warp drive folds spacetime]”, Jean-Paul L.

... Read More

The organizers of the Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award) have announced the jury for the 2025 award, including Eugen Bacon (chair), Rebecca Fraimow, Andrew Hook, K. Ibura, and Cheryl S. Ntumy.

The jury is considering works for the 2025 award. A recommendation form is open to the public and nominations will be accepted until November 14, 2025. Winners will be announced by late May 2026 and with plans to ... Read More

James Patterson, in partnership with organizations including Association of Writers & Writing Programs, the Authors Guild, Girls Write Now, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and PEN America, has announced and organized the “Go Finish Your Book” program, offering monetary support toward unfinished works.

According to an Associated Press article, winning authors will receive up to $50,000 to help finish their manuscript. According to AWP, winners will also receive “mentorship opportunities, resources, ... Read More

Co-owner Savanna Sturkie has announced the imminent opening of new independent bookstore Love & Legends in New York City. Sturkie describes the bookstore as the city’s first to focus exclusively on works of fantasy and romance.

At Love & Legends, you can expect to find a tailored selection of genre fiction, bookish gift items, RPGs, dice and more. We will also create a much-needed third space for fantasy-loving Brooklynites by ... Read More

The preliminary ballot for the 2025 Ditmar Awards for Australian SF has been announced.

Best Novel

• Blood Covenant, Alan Baxter (Cemetery Dance)
• Ghost Cities, Siang Lu (University of Queensland Press)
• The Medusa Situation, Gabiann Marin (Clan Destine)
• The Escher Man, T.R. Napper (Titan)
• The Underhistory, Kaaron Warren (Serpent’s Tail)

Best Novella or Novelette

• Wilder, Pamela Jeffs (Four Ink)
• Cruel Nights, Jason Nahrung (Brain

...Read More

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup has given “preliminary approval” to the $1.5 billion class action lawsuit, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, in which authors accused AI company Anthropic of illegally obtaining and using their books to teach its AI system.

According to a Bloomberg report, Alsup said the settlement was “fair” and emphasized the need for capable lawyers to manage the suit ethically. Anthropic will pay approximately $3,000 for each ...Read More

Winners of the 16th annual Xingyun Awards for Chinese science fiction were announced by the World Chinese Science Fiction Association. Titles have been translated by Hu Shaoyan.

Best Novel

• WINNER: Golden Peaches, Yang Wanqing (Sichuan Science & Technology; Science Fiction World)

• The Planetary Rites, An Hao (New Star)
• Jia Jia, Qi Ran (China Translation Publishing House; SciFidea)
• Cracks, Liu Yang (People’s Literature Publishing House)

Best Novella

...Read More

Winners of the 2025 Deutsche Science Fiction Preis have been announced.

Best German Language Short Story

• WINNER: “Davy ’n‘ Jean”, Gabriele Behrend (Rock Planet)
• Second Place: “Ascheweg”, Robert Corvus (C.R.E.D.O)
• Third Place: “Die Tür in den Sommer”, Ulf Fildebrandt (NOVA 34)
• Fourth Place: “Ein Schritt ins Leere”, Aiki Mira (Psyche mit Zukunft)
• Fifth Place: “Ich bin die Auferstehung und das Leben”, Heidrun Jänchen (NOVA

...Read More

Yume Kitasei has announced the launch of the 2025 “Traveling Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Festival,” a series of panel discussions over two weeks as panelists visit eight cities in the northeastern US. The cities are: Monday, October 13: New York NY (PT Knitwear) Wednesday, October 15: Baltimore MD (Greedy Reads) Thursday, October 16 – Washington DC (East City Bookshop) Friday, October 17: Philadelphia PA (Mavey Books) Tuesday, October 21:

Writer Jon Lasser, 49, died in hospice on September 23, 2025. He had lung cancer. Lasser was born November 10, 1975 in NYC and worked in the technology industry. During his career, he published short stories in Analog, Diabolical Plots, Galaxy’s Edge, Lightspeed, and other publications. “The Star Tree” won a Writers and Illustrators of the Future contest in the fourth quarter of 2016, and “Wreckwalkers” was a James White

The Asociación Española de Fantasía, Ciencia Ficción y Terror (AEFCFT) has announced the winners for the 2025 Ignotus Awards, honoring speculative fiction from Spain and beyond. Novela extranjera (Foreign Novel) WINNER: Què mou els morts [What Moves the Dead], T. Kingfisher, translated by Marta Armengol Royo (Obscura) and Lo que mueve a los muertos [What Moves the Dead], T. Kingfisher, translated by Arrate Hidalgo (Crononauta) Aprendre, si tenim sort [To Be

The American Library Association (ALA) has released their Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2024, including some works and authors of genre interest. The ALA has listed the top 10 most challenged books amid the third-highest number of book challenges since 1990.

Finalists for the French-language Prix Aurora-Boréal have been announced. Best Novel Magnétisme, Paule Blanchette (Lux & Nox) La perle verte, Amélie Bougie (Lux & Nox) Le fléau d’Angarie, Julie Desjardins (Lux & Nox) Ashara: La quête de la Lumière, Marie-Ève Rondeau (Essor-Livres) Le centre-ville des morts, Éric Thériault (Lo-Ély) Best Short Story “IA”, July Cyr (Échos de l’imaginaire) “Bercer les voûtes”, Ariane Gélinas (Les Six Brumes) “La dette”, Bruno Mercille

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (Sceptre) is one of the six titles shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize. The £50,000 prize is “open to works by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.” This year’s judges are Sara Collins, Justine Jordan, Yiyun Li, Nitin Sawhney, and chair Edmund de Waal. Shortlisted authors receive £2,500 and a “specially bound edition of their

The Before Columbus Foundation has announced the winners of the 46th American Book Awards for “out­standing literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community.” Winners of genre interest include: Martyr!, Kaveh Akbar (Knopf) Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) James, Percival Everett (Doubleday) Malas, Marcela Fuentes (Penguin) Mice 1961, Stacey Levine (Verse Chorus) The awards will be presented Octo­ber 26, 2025 in at UC Berkeley in

by Brenda W. Clough

I’m going to make a big assumption here: You are not immortal. If this is not accurate, email me, and we’ll write another article for Planetside about planning for your endless life. But if you are like the rest of us, you’re going to die someday. And you should think about it.

Why Should I?

The notion of one’s own demise is curiously repugnant for some people. I had an uncle who steadfastly refused to contemplate it or take any action about it. This meant that when he did pass, his affairs were in chaos. This is not a good look for anybody, but 10 times out of 10, it’s particularly bad if you are an author or creative. Because you have more value than just your personal property. You have intellectual property: the copyrights to your fiction or art. And these can be a huge cause of contention after you’re no longer around.

The basic rule of all end-of-life planning is: If you want anything done, set it up now. Everything and anything can be done, if only you’re above ground to do it. Once you’re dead, you get no more say in anything. You want a Viking funeral, to lie on a burning longship as it’s pushed out to sea into a golden sunset? Oral instructions are easily forgotten, misheard, or ignored. Write it down, or better yet, find the business that does Viking funerals and sign a contract in advance for their services, and you’ll happily burn.

The first and most important step is to make your will. It’s not necessary—in fact, it’s downright unwise—to wait until your golden years to do this. When you acquire significant assets, like real estate, a partner, or children? You should make a will. These things are too important not to plan for.

What If I Don’t?

If you die intestate (without a will), your estate will be subject to probate. This means the government will intervene to determine how to distribute your assets. But you, being dead, will get no input into these decisions. The authorities may do things that you’d very much dislike. And going through probate takes ages. My uncle, who was too nervy to ever make a will? He owned property. It took two years for his estate to go through probate, two years during which his widow needed the money, and his sons frantically struggled with New York state’s bureaucracy. It was the last thing the family needed to face after the bereavement.

Depending upon where you live, you may not need a lawyer to draw up that will. There are online forms that allow you to create a simple will. This works if you don’t own a lot of stuff. If it’s you, your car, and your goldfish, you do not have a complicated estate. But if there’s anything complex or important in your life, you should hire an expert, an estate attorney, to be sure it’s done right.

A competent estate lawyer will help you to arrange things the way you want, now, while you still have all your marbles. If you want to provide for your beloved Labrador retriever, if you want to specifically ensure that your worthless son has nothing to squander on riotous living, the lawyer can make this happen. There are hundreds of mystery thrillers and Victorian novels, excitingly plotted around intestate deaths, confusing or badly worded bequests, and squandered inheritances. A properly drawn-up will means you offer no inspiration to novelists. You want this to be boring, legal, and airtight.

Your lawyer will also help you draw up an end-of-life document, designating a person to make medical decisions on your behalf if you are no longer able to do so. Again, this saves your loved ones a world of hurt at a moment of tragedy and crisis. It becomes especially important if you become incapacitated but don’t die right away. You do not want a fight between your kids about who decides to pull the plug on your life support. A spouse or partner is the usual candidate for this role, but your lawyer should ask you to designate a backup person as well.

Then Your Literary Estate

The above is the absolute minimum in estate planning. But an author or a creative has that intellectual property. The executor of your will acts as you have instructed regarding your money, house, or children. And your literary executor will do the same for your copyrights and intellectual property. They’ll sign contracts for reprints, collect the payments, and transfer those monies where you want them to go. Consult your lawyer about this, because state laws vary. You may need a second document, or at least a letter of your intent, designating someone to handle your literary estate.

Who should your literary executor be? Select someone who knows you and your work. Let them be responsible and reasonably young. A literary executor older than you may predecease you, and then you’d have to do it all again. You’ll want to discuss this with the person in advance, so they know what it entails and can consent to accept the role.

Supply them with a list of all your publications to date, so they have a grasp of how big your literary estate is going to be. Mention to them any vehement feelings you have about media options, or having your stories telepathically transmitted into the reader’s cerebral cortex if that technology comes online before your copyrights run out. These instructions can be as simple or as complex as you like. My son is my literary executor, and my instructions were elementary: “Grab all the money on offer, and run!” 

If you have no suitable person you’re comfortable with to act as your executor or literary executor, ask your lawyer again. The law firm may well agree to act on your behalf in this matter. Having an entity be your executor is no bad thing. Law firms don’t last forever, but they’re far more immortal than a human being.

Once you have your literary executor lined up, be sure to tell SFWA’s Estates-Legacy Program, which keeps track of them all. This will allow the Steven Spielberg of the 22nd century to find your literary executor and negotiate for the telepathic rights to your novel without difficulty. Much more information is available at this link. This would also be the moment to tell any agents you may have, literary or media, that you’ve chosen a literary executor.

Wait, There’s More

This is the absolute minimum for an author. Even if you only have a couple of stories out, it’s only responsible to take care of your physical and literary offspring. But let’s suppose you’re a bigger player. You’re George R. R. Martin or Stephen King, with a dozen New York Times best sellers in your catalog, movie deals in development, or Netflix projects scheduled. Your works are not just sofa change but a major income stream.

At that level, you probably already have a lawyer to organize your career. She almost certainly has already told you this. If she hasn’t, ask her now about setting up living trusts. You can shelter all your assets in a trust that will outlive you. This trust can do anything you want: donate the ongoing income from your movies to worthy causes; allow your as-yet-unborn great-grandkids to afford a Princeton tuition; erect your elaborate tomb next to Chopin’s in Père Lachaise Cemetery. A trust is the main vehicle you can deploy to elude estate taxes. You can set up as many separate trusts as you like to protect one asset from litigation that might devour another.

Most crucially, a trust helps to cut off litigation. Your unborn grandkids may despise one another, but they’ll hesitate to sue if you set up a trust. It’s not a perfect guarantee, but because you’re setting up the trust and declaring your intent for it while you’re still alive, your intent is clear and inarguable in court. Not having a trust is worse. Not having a record of your intent gives your heirs the opening to litigate all the assets away like Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, or to make an embarrassing splash in the media fighting over your millions when you’re incapacitated or dead.

You read in the news now and again of people who did not organize their estates until it was too late. They’re no longer competent, or they died unexpectedly. The rats in their life seized the opportunity to crawl out of the woodwork. Suddenly, accusations fly, the cries of elder abuse or looting of the checking accounts. The dirty laundry is dumped out, the old girlfriends, long-lost offspring, or estranged relatives, all of them clawing for the money the oldster can no longer use. Everyone who admired that actor, author, or artist nods their head. What a shame that this should be her legacy! Do not be the star of one of these loathsome scenarios. Look your demise in the eye—and plan for it.

Editor’s note: SFWA provides the Bud Webster Legacy Kit to help professional creators compile the resources they need to protect their intellectual legacies.

Brenda W. Clough is the first female Asian American SF writer, first appearing in print in 1984. Her 2025 novel is a science fiction novel, His Selachian Majesty Requests. In 2024, she published the 12th book in the Marian Halcombe series, Servants of the Empress. A novelette, “Clio’s Scroll,” appeared in Clarkesworld in July 2023. A historical novel, A Door in His Head, won the 2023 Diverse Voices Award. Her novella “May Be Some Time” was a finalist for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and became the novel Revise the World. She is active in the SF community, attending conventions and doing podcasts. Her complete bibliography is up on her website, brendaclough.net.

The post Estate Planning for Authors and Creatives appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

by J. D. Harlock

Due to the influence of One Thousand and One Nights’ early translations, depictions of premodern Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) in speculative fiction tend to be inaccurate. Dr. Jack Shaheen referred to this reductionist stereotype as “Arab Land,” an amalgamation of Eastern and North African cultures presented as the “Middle East.” This article will clarify certain misconceptions about the region to promote authentic representation. 

Imperial, Royal, and Noble Ranks 

Arab-esque monarchies are somehow an “emirate” headed by a “vizier” under a “sultan” referred to with the honorific “sheik.” Although no standardization exists, some choices stand out as inaccurate. Governance structures have used these terms in various ways, with modern usage having different meanings. Still, they have formed a loose hierarchy in the region.

The Khalīfah is comparable to the Catholic Pope if he also possessed his own sovereign with political and military authority, ruling over the Khilāfah as the theocratic leader in historical eras in which the title had been acknowledged by the Ummah (Islamic world). Akin to an emperor, a Sulṭān rules over a Sultānīyah. A king, or a Malik (m) / Malika (f), rules over a Mamlakah. Under them, you might find a prince, or an Amīr (m) / Amīra (f), who rules over an Imārah, a smaller province in the vein of a principality. Any of these people might have an advisor with varying delegated powers, often called a vizier. A vazīr is the Turkish form of Wazīr (m) / Wazīra (f), with the Grand Vizier referred to as al-Wazīr al-Aʿẓam (m) / al-Wazīra al-Aʿẓam (f). Shaykh (m) / Shaykha (f) could be a title for a tribal leader, which may be inherited. It can also be used as an honorific for a respected figure within the community or a religious figure, in which case it must be earned. 

The -Stans of Southwest Asia and North Africa

When fictional countries’ names end in “stan,” it’s often a reference to the “stans” of Central Asia. The -stan suffix is used for Arab nations where Islam is a prominent feature of the setting, such as in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019)’s Urzikstan or The Black List: Redemption’s Kyrkistan, or Six Underground’s Turgistan. No country in Southwestern Asia or North Africa has ever used it because the suffix is derived from the Persian language, meaning “land of,” and is restricted to the Indo-Iranian world or the Turkic world as a borrowed term. 

Romanization

Romanization has an understated impact on worldbuilding when crafting authentic settings. Traditional practices haven’t succeeded in mimicking accurate pronunciations. For example, due to the lack of a letter ح (ḥ) in English, the closest approximation in English is the letter h. Yet, you tend to find names transliterated into “Ahmad,” spelled “Achmed” (Achmed Saves America). The same applies to the letter ج, which sounds like a rougher j, but you end up with “djinn” when writing it as “jinn” is closer.

Furthermore, romanization in other languages, such as French, has led to even further confusion in English. For example, the sh sound is not native to French, and is often approximated with ch. As a result, former French colonies or countries that were under the French mandate used Francophone transliterations, such as Bachir, pronounced closer to “Bashir,” and Chihab, pronounced closer to “Shihab.” This is why it’s important to check that you are using the romanizations closest to the Arabic pronunciation.

Traditional romanization practices have created another issue regarding made-up words meant to sound Arabic. For example, in the romanization of Arabic script, the letter ق (kāf), which has a heavier sound, is often translated as q since another letter, ك (kāf), exists, which has the sounds of a lighter k. To mimic this convention, there’s a tendency for made-up locale names meant to mimic Arabic to pepper in Qs, such as the infamous Qurac (Iraq), Syraq (Syria), and Kahndaq (Egypt) from the DC Universe or Aqiria from the Marvel Universe. This extends to other romanizations of sounds that are indicative of Arabic to the English-speakers’ ears, such as خ or kh for Khemed from Tintin or the suffix  يا or -iyā, which is used in a variety of cases, such as Trucial Abysmia in G.I. Joe. It would be more appropriate for writers to derive names from Arabic words, such as “Bahrain” (Two Seas) or Arabizations of words from indigenous languages, such as Lebanon.

Arabic Dialects

Due to the influence of other languages and local cultures, Arabic dialects vary to the extent that some are nigh-incomprehensible to speakers in other regions. In turn, having Arabs from different areas automatically understand each other without trying to communicate in MSA (Modern Standard Arabic), the formal lingua franca rarely spoken day-to-day, or the need to clarify slang comes off as a bit of a stretch, as is the case with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022). Depictions of Arabic speakers using MSA for no reason, with no discernible accents or the wrong accent, are also problematic—how Ardeth Bay speaks in The Mummy (1999) is unrealistic, as even talking in MSA all the time will have signs of the original dialect’s accent. 

Conclusion

It’s unfortunate that for a region with such diversity, there’s a homogenized depiction of the Arab world that contains no multitudes, coexists with nothing, and possesses no local lineages. Hopefully, this article will be one step in offering tangible solutions for speculative fiction writers worldwide to write authentic Arab-esque settings. Then we can finally put an end to speculative fiction’s history of harmful stereotypes that continue to harm SWANA communities in the West, and promote an accurate version of the region that represents it properly. 

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J. D. Harlock is an Eisner-nominated American writer, researcher, editor, and academic pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of St. Andrews, whose writing has been featured in Strange Horizons, Nightmare Magazine, The Griffith Review, Queen’s Quarterly, and New York University’s Library of Arabic Literature. You can find him on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The post Avoiding “Arab Land” Stereotypes when Depicting the Premodern Arab World appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

SFWA President Kate Ristau:
Tasting Notes from Recent Advocacy, Education, and Outreach

Some days, the publishing industry is like a nice cup of tea: warm, supportive and just the right amount of comforting. Other days, it burns your tongue and scalds your hands. It’s overly sweet or way too bitter. 

Let’s take the metaphor one step further and spill the tea, shall we?

This week, the judge in the Anthropic case ripped apart the proposed settlement in the class action lawsuit. When his reasoning came through, I saw echoes of Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine. Sanford discussed how the settlement works off minimal definitions for which books to include in the class. 

The class leaves some authors with an empty cup. 

I am personally one of those authors, holding traditionally published books in my hands that were never copyrighted by my publisher. (If you’ve been wondering about copyright and how it works, you’ll want to check out the latest piece by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware Presents, Protecting Your Intellectual Property, which covers the basics, the myths, the scams, and more.)

Sanford and Strauss are concerned about copyright and liabilities, and so are we. The judge read those same tea leaves, and he argued that the settlement is being “forced down the throat of authors.”

That is tough to swallow. 

I want to assure you that, at SFWA, we hear that complaint, that frustration, and that gross tea. We are meeting with our own counsel to discuss the gaps in the class definition, while also working on informing eligible class members about their eligibility. We don’t want any authors to miss out on being compensated for the use of their work.

While all this shakes out, we’re also heading to Washington, D.C., where Isis and I will be meeting with congressional staff and lawmakers to discuss how these cases impact authors, in addition to other concerns such as book bans and the future of publishing.

When we are there, we invite you to join us for Tea in D.C. this Monday, September 15, from 5-6PM at Ebenezer’s Coffeehouse, 201 F St NE, Washington, D.C.

I’ll pour your first cup. We’ll chat about copyrights and claims. And importantly, we will talk about the work you are doing and how SFWA can help you!

It’s going to be a great weekend on the East Coast. Make sure you check out the full lineup of SFWA events at the Baltimore Book Festival.

I’ll leave the tea metaphor to steep for a bit and just say that this situation is complicated. We think your work never should have been stolen. We know this is impacting thousands of SFWA members. We want you to be paid for your work. 

So, for now, make sure you fill out the contact form if eligible for the class action, and join us in D.C. if you can. Some tempests can’t be contained in their teapots, but we’re here for you in any storm.

Keep writing – and we’ll keep putting the kettle on.

Kate Ristau

SFWA President

The post Press Release – September 12, 2025 appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware®

Copyright is a complex subject about which there are many misconceptions.

I was reminded of that this week, thanks to an email from an author who discovered that several of their books were included in one of the databases of pirated works used by the AI company Anthropic for AI training. The author wanted to know whether they were eligible to be part of the gigantic $1.5 billion settlement Anthropic has agreed to pay to compensate writers for its misuse of their intellectual property. (You can read more about the lawsuit, and the settlement, here.)

One of the criteria for eligibility, set by the court, is that copyrights to the pirated works must have been properly registered with the US Copyright Office before Anthropic downloaded the databases. And indeed, the author’s books were all registered in a timely manner…but not with the Copyright Office. Instead, the author used a website called Copyrighted.com, which offers a kind of faux registration using timestamps and its own certificates.

I had to tell the author that no, they weren’t eligible for compensation for their pirated books. In the United States, there’s no equivalent or substitute for the US Copyright Office’s official registration process. The author couldn’t even use the materials they’d gotten from Coprighted.com as prima facie evidence of copyright ownership. Again, only official registration provides that.

In this article, I’m going to cover the basics of copyright, offer some warnings, and dispel some myths. I know that much of what follows will be familiar to a lot of readers—but as the example above shows, knowledge gaps not only exist, but can be damaging…and as always in the writing biz, knowledge is your greatest ally and your best defense. I hope even the most copyright-savvy readers will find something useful here.

Copyright Basics

Copyright, literally, is “the right to copy.” It guarantees the authors of creative works—including books, stories, artworks, films, recordings, and photographs—the exclusive right to copy and distribute the works, or authorize others to do so, by whatever means and in whatever media currently exist. It also ensures that works can’t be copied or distributed without the author’s permission.

The international source for copyright law is the Berne Convention, adopted in 1886 and revised and amended several times since. In the 181 countries that are currently signatory to Berne, including the US, copyright ownership is automatic the instant work is fixed in tangible form—the paint applied to canvas, the musical notes recorded, the words written down. Creators don’t have to do anything else to make that happen.

Contained within copyright is the entire bundle of rights that creators can utilize themselves or license to others. For writers, this includes the right to publish in print and digital formats, to make translations and audio recordings and dramatic adaptations, to create derivative works, and much more—a list that continues to expand as technology makes different forms of publication and distribution possible.

When you sign a publishing contract or agree to the Terms of Service of a self-publishing platform, you grant the publisher or platform permission to publish, sell, and distribute your work for profit, in exchange for a share of the income. Because you own the copyright, granting rights doesn’t mean you lose or abandon those rights: merely that you authorize someone else to exploit them for a time. Eventually, once the contract term expires or the publisher takes the work “out of print” or you terminate the contract yourself, those claims on your rights lapse, leaving you free to re-grant them or to use them yourself, as you choose.

You can’t lose your copyright unless you specifically agree to give it up (as in work-for-hire contracts), and no transfer of copyright is valid unless it’s in writing and signed by the copyright owner. But copyright does expire eventually. For written works, the Berne Convention sets the duration of copyright for individual creators as a minimum of the creator’s lifetime plus 50 years, ensuring that copyright can be passed down to descendants like any other form of property, but also that works will eventually enter the public domain. Many of the countries that have adopted Berne have extended that term: in the US, the UK, and most of Europe, it’s the creator’s lifetime plus 70 years.

In addition to the economic rights described above, Berne invests creators with moral rights, intended to protect authorship by ensuring that works are published with the creator’s name (the right of attribution) and can’t be amended or altered in ways that would damage the reputation of the creator or the work (the right of integrity).

Most Berne signatory countries recognize moral rights. The US is an exception, at least for written works, having decided when it adopted Berne in 1988 that other laws provided equivalent protection. Moral rights really only become significant for US writers when contracts demand that they be waived—a decision that shouldn’t be entered into lightly. (I’ve written in much more detail about moral rights, and the implications of waiving them, here.)

Registration

The Berne Convention ensures copyright protection without requiring creators to take any additional steps, such as registering their copyrights. As a result, many Berne countries have no official registration process.

Others, such as Canada, offer voluntary registration schemes, with registration providing prima facie evidence of copyright ownership—important for legal purposes, because you don’t have to waste time proving ownership if you ever go to court. 

The US is unique in making copyright registration a prerequisite for any kind of copyright-related court action (there’s a complex history on why this is the case, despite the stipulations of Berne). Registering, which must be done via the US Copyright Office, doesn’t increase your protection—by law, you have that already—but you can’t defend your copyright in court unless you’ve previously registered.

If you’re a US author, when should registration happen? Contrary to much misinformed belief, there’s no need to register at the submission stage. Theft really is extremely unlikely at that point. A good agent or publisher won’t want to risk their reputation by stealing, and anyway, it’s a whole lot more trouble to steal your manuscript and pretend someone else wrote it than it is just to work with you. As for a scam agent or publisher, they aren’t interested in your writing at all, only in your money.

It’s not until your work is published—and exposed to a wide audience—that theft becomes a concern. At that point, registration is important.

Contracts from larger US publishers require the publisher to register copyright on the author’s behalf, at the publisher’s expense (though you should always double-check; see the Resources section below). For self-publishers and writers with smaller presses that often leave registration to the author, registration is easy to do online and costs $45 to $65. If you register before the infringement begins or within three months of first publication, whichever is less, you can recover the full range of statutory damages (up to $150,000, depending on the circumstances). Registration also provides prima facie evidence of copyright ownership, as long as it’s done within five years of first publication.

Writers from countries other than the United States can also register with the US Copyright Office. If your work will be sold and distributed in the US, registering is a good idea.

What about authors of short works—stories, articles, blog posts, and the like? The US Copyright Office offers a handy group registration option that allows you to register up to 50 published works at a time, for a single fee of $65. Registration makes sense even if the works are published as part of anthologies or periodicals. Such publications register collective copyrights that protect the publications as a whole but aren’t necessarily adequate to protect individual works.

An Alternative for US Creators: The Copyright Claims Board

Bringing a copyright suit in the event of infringement can be ruinously expensive and is far beyond the capacity of many creators (the Authors Guild estimates the average cost at $400,000). In the US, there’s a recently established low-cost alternative: the Copyright Claims Board.

Approved by Congress in 2020, the CCB allows creators to bring lower-dollar infringement claims (monetary damages are capped at $30,000) without having to hire an attorney or make a court appearance (proceedings are conducted entirely online). Fees are modest—just $100 for a basic claim, only $40 of which must be paid upfront—and as with any US copyright-related legal action, you must at least have applied to register your copyright.

Given that it’s such a new resource, Writer Beware has been keeping a close eye on CCB proceedings since it started accepting cases in 2022 (you can see our collection of posts about the CCB here). So far, and somewhat to our surprise, literary claims are very much in the minority.

Schemes and Scams

In countries without an official registration scheme, how do you prove authorship?

In addition to drafts, notes, outlines, contracts, correspondence, and the like, there are online services that provide timestamps and certificates or other documents that may help to prove authorship. They can be pricey though, and some try to bamboozle you with claims of super-sekrit encryption to prevent tampering or hype about registering on the blockchain. Mostly, they just boil down to the same timestamps and self-issued certificates you can get from websites that use fewer buzzwords.

Unfortunately, there are also many “bewares” in this area: from self-publishing service providers that submit US copyright registration applications as an add-on at a much greater cost than you’d incur if you registered on your own; to faux registration services like the Copyrighted.com site mentioned above, which don’t make false claims but use vague language to obfuscate the fact that what they provide isn’t equivalent to official registration schemes; to scams that falsely present as if they actually are official registration schemes, such as the IP Rights Office and its claim to be “the Copyright Registration Service for the United States.” Not only are these a waste of money, but what you get for your cash may not be anything you can actually use.

Be aware also that there’s no such thing as “international copyright registration” or an “international copyright seal” or an “international book seal”. Scammy publishing/marketing companies (especially those from overseas) want you to believe there is, so they can charge you thousands to supposedly obtain it for you—but it is a completely fictional product whose sole purpose is to drain writers’ wallets. It’s also unnecessary. Per Berne, your US copyright is fully recognized by all other Berne signatories, and vice versa.

Here’s what one of these fake registrations looks like. It’s modeled on real registration certificates from the US Copyright Office, with a bogus International Copyright Office seal and fake signature.  

Copyright Myths

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned misconceptions. Here are a few that I often encounter in my work with Writer Beware.

You don’t have copyright protection until you’ve registered with the US Copyright Office. False. As noted above, you own copyright from the moment you write down the words. Registration is an extra step that gives you additional legal benefits.

You own copyright on your ideas. Also false. Ideas are not protected by copyright law, only their expression. Ideas are part of the public domain, and no one has a monopoly on them. Five novelists may come up with a similar idea, but they will produce five different books.

Manuscripts have to include a copyright notice or symbol for copyright to be effective. At one time, the US did require this, but that became obsolete in 1989 when the US joined the Berne Convention (Berne does not require either a notice or registration to effectuate copyright). A copyright notice can sometimes be useful: for example, including a copyright notice with work published online makes it harder for infringers to weasel out of damages by claiming innocent infringement. But it’s not needed for copyright protection. 

When submitting work to agents or publishers, it’s smart to deter theft by including a copyright notice. This is an instance in which a copyright notice is not useful. As mentioned above, theft at the submission stage is highly unlikely. Reputable agents and publishers don’t want to risk their reputations that way. Just as important, agents and publishers assume you know this. A copyright notice on a submitted manuscript marks you as an unreasonably paranoid amateur.

Poor man’s copyright is a substitute for copyright registration. According to this theory, placing your manuscript in an envelope, sealing it, and mailing it to yourself is equivalent to formally registering your copyright, as long as there’s a postmark or delivery receipt and you retain the envelope unopened. But not only is that not the case—only registration counts as registration—poor man’s copyright probably wouldn’t be useful even as a secondary way of proving authorship, since it’s easy to fake. You could mail the envelope empty—and fill and seal it later.

Resources

The Berne Convention: the international source of copyright law.

US Copyright Office: the only genuine source for US copyright registration.

Copyright Claims Board: a low-cost small claims court for copyright actions that offers an alternative to expensive copyright lawsuits.

US Copyright registration portal. A single work can be registered online for between $45 and $65, and on paper for $125. There’s also a group registration option for short works, for $65.

Copyright Basics. This circular from the US Copyright Office explains the basics of copyright, including what’s protected, the rights of copyright owners, the benefits of registration, and more.

US copyright public records system. Here you can look up works to find out if they’ve been registered…including your own. Part of the unwelcome fallout of the Bartz v Anthropic lawsuit has been authors’ discovery that many publishers failed to register their works, even though their contracts required it. It’s always wise to double-check.

Explore more articles from Writer Beware® Presents

Victoria Strauss, co-founder of Writer Beware®, is the author of nine novels for adults and young adults, including the Way of Arata epic fantasy duology (The Burning Land and The Awakened City), and a pair of historical novels for teens, Passion Blue and Color Song. She has written hundreds of book reviews for publications such as SF Site, and her articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest and elsewhere. 

She received the 2009 SFWA® Service Award for her work with Writer Beware, and in 2012 was honored with an Independent Book Blogger Award for the Writer Beware blog. She’s webmistress of the Writer Beware website, which she also created, and maintains the Writer Beware database, blog, and Facebook page.

The post Protecting Your Intellectual Property: What You Need to Know About Copyright appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.

Welcome to the September edition of the SFWA Market Report.

Please note: Inclusion of any venue in this report does not indicate an official endorsement by SFWA. Those markets included on this list pay at least $0.08/word USD in at least one category of fiction. This compilation is not exhaustive of all publication opportunities that pay our recommended minimum professional rate. Additionally, SFWA adheres to our DEI Policy when making selections for this report. We strongly encourage writers to closely review all contracts and consult our resources on best contract practices.

New Markets

Otherside (Upcoming)

Markets Currently Open for Submissions

Africanfuturism Anthology (Flame Tree Publishing)
Anomaly (Recently Opened)
Asimov Press
Augur (Recently Opened)
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Book Worms (Recently Opened)
Book XI (Recently Opened)
Cast of Wonders (Recently Opened)
Clarkesworld Magazine
Crepuscular Magazine
Factor Four Magazine
Flame Tree Fiction Newsletter
Infinite Worlds
Nature: Futures
Night Shades (Recently Opened)
Planet Scumm (Recently Opened)
Plott Hound Magazine (Recently Opened)
Protocolized
Reckoning
Samovar
Small Wonders
Tales & Feathers (Recently Opened)
The Daily Tomorrow
These Dreaming Hills (Recently Opened)
Three-Lobed Burning Eye (Recently Opened)
Torch Literary Arts
Tractor Beam
Uncanny (Recently Opened)
Uncharted Magazine
Utopia Science Fiction

Markets Recently Closed for Submissions

Common Bonds Anthology Series (Permanent)
Dreams Divine (Permanent)
Escape Pod
Haven Spec Magazine
Mmeory
Odysseus (Permanent)
Of Swords and Roses (Permanent)
Old Moon
Orion’s Belt
PseudoPod
The Cosmic Background
The Valkyries (Flame Tree Publishing) (Permanent)

Other Opportunities

The Tomorrow Prize

Upcoming Market Changes

Anomaly‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Anomaly‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins and ends soon.
Apex Monthly Flash Fiction Contest‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Augur‘s Limited demographic submission window: trans, disabled, and/or BIPOC creators and creators residing in Canada/Turtle Island ends soon.
Book Worms temporarily closes soon.
Book XI‘s Submission window ends soon.
Cast of Wonders‘s Submission window ends soon.
Escape Pod‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Flash Fiction Online (FFO) (Originals)‘s Submission window begins soon.
Haven Spec Magazine‘s Limited demographic submission window: authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups begins soon.
Metastellar (Originals)‘s Submission window begins soon.
Plott Hound Magazine‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Tales & Feathers‘s Limited demographic submission window: trans, disabled, and/or BIPOC creators ends soon.
The Orange & Bee‘s Submission Window begins soon.
Three-Lobed Burning Eye‘s Submission Window ends soon.
Tractor Beam temporarily closes soon.
Uncanny‘s Submission window ends soon.
Write Before Midnight permanently closes soon.

The SFWA Market Report is compiled by David Steffen, editor of Diabolical Plots and The Long List Anthology series, and administrator and co-founder of the Submission Grinder.  The Long List Anthology Volume 9 ebook is now available! You can order it now at Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and others! You can support Diabolical Plots and the Submission Grinder on PayPal or Patreon or by buying books or merch.

Wondering about some missing publications? Check out our July 23 update on Must Read, the publisher of Analog, Asimov’s, and F&SF. Our partner, Submission Grinder, is currently not listing these magazines, the first two of which are open for submissions and the latter of which is rebuilding its workflow.

SFWA remains in open dialog with Must Read to support the ongoing development of best practices for contract language, and to serve as an ally to all creators striving to improve the writing ecosystem for authors.

If you have questions about the contracts you receive from any SFF publications, please write to the Contracts Committee to learn more about what is and is not common/ethical practice in our industry.

The post SFWA Market Report For September appeared first on SFWA - The Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association.