Well, all three of my books are now registered...with their hardcopies in the mail as of Friday. Thanks so much for the info! It's now in my release checklist, too, and will be in my next "What I've Learned" blog post. :-]

Thank you Susan. I've been wondering about how to handle this for a long time.

Glad this was helpful, Cheryl!

You can register copyright through a service, but in most cases, it's far less expensive and easier to just register yourself, directly through the copyright office. Most services charge extra fees that are either too high or not necessary, because registration is easy to do on your own.

Hi Sharla! If you're changing the book substantially, you can register it as a "new edition" or as "previously registered material with new material" (that's an option on the Copyright Office website). You'd handle it like a new registration, but on the information pages, you'll state that it contains some previously registered material (get the registration information for the original registrations before you get started, because you'll need it). The form will prompt you to put in the original registration information and describe (in summary) what is new.

Copyright registration is often overlooked, because it's not "required" for the creation or existence of the copyright. It's definitely something independent authors need to know about, though!

Hi Betty! If you register on the digital edition, it covers all formats produced later, yes. The copyright office only cares or requires re-registration if another edition has substantially different content (I'd say 10% changes or greater). Changes in format (or publisher, without more) don't require re-registrations.