No picture this week. The one image I want to talk about isn’t something I can put out on the internet.

Yesterday was a busy day, so the mail didn’t get checked. Grabbed it this morning. There was a letter for me from the Library of Congress United States Copyright Office.

I knew what it was, and was driving, so couldn’t open it up for a while. Even knowing what it was didn’t prepare me for how it felt to hold that piece of paper.

It was the official copyright registration for ‘Scales and Stingers’.

That one piece of paper made me feel more like a legitimate, published author than holding the first print copy in my hands. More than all the rereads for pure enjoyment because I nailed this series.

The U.S. government recognizes that I created this series and no one else. It means I have legal backing if anyone plagiarizes any or all of the series, tries to pirate it, or otherwise steal what is my intellectual property.

My former publisher never bothered to register copyright. They went the cheap way – slap a notice in the all rights reserved page and called it good – so I never felt like I was as protected as I am now. Mind you, I was perfectly within my rights to register it on my own. But that House wasn’t willing to add the additional cost (it’s not much) to their end.

Creative James Media thinks differently. They operate differently.

I don’t believe in regrets. I learned a lot about publishing, my own writing, and how to recognize a House who talks a good talk but doesn’t back it up with one that knows what they’re doing.

This single piece of paper has pushed back on the imposter syndrome hard. It might get framed and put on my wall.

BB/Chan Eil Eagal Orm