Jonathan Shuerger: We’ve got a packed episode that could impact your writing career in ways you may not have considered. The Anthropic settlement website is live, and authors are finally getting answers about whether they are in this class action.
Here is the big question nobody is talking about: do your agents get a cut of your settlement? We will break down what this means for your bottom line.
Plus the government shutdown just threw a wrench into copyright plans. Do not panic. The Copyright Office closure might be less scary than you think. We will tell you what to do right now to protect your work and why you should hold onto your manuscripts, because AI just leveled up in a big way.
Sora 2 is not just making funny videos. It could transform how you market your books. We are talking about technology that could put you in scenes with your own book covers. Also, if you think you own your Audible audiobooks, Audible has thoughts about that. We will see what the lawyers have to say.
Subscribe, ring the bell, and let’s dive in.
Anthropic Copyright Settlement Website
The Anthropic Settlement Class Action Lawsuit website is up: anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com. It is fully operational, with a searchable works list and claims form.
Before you go spending your winnings, keep in mind there is no final approval yet. But the full book list will at least tell you if you are in the class.
Thomas, what are your thoughts?
Thomas Umstattd Jr.: This is the only search engine that matters. Whatever you saw from the Authors Guild, the New York Times, or anywhere else does not matter. This is the authoritative one from the court.
These kinds of websites are common in class actions.
One correction. It is very unlikely these earnings are tax free. Sometimes money from a court case is tax free, often related to pain and suffering or emotional harm, but not always. It looks like you will probably have to pay taxes on Anthropics winnings. Check with your CPA. Maybe a portion qualifies, but do not assume.
Will Agents Take a Cut?
Thomas: The big question is whether agents get a cut. Legally, it comes down to how your contract is worded. Practically, it comes down to who gets the check.
If Anthropic cuts a check to your publisher and then your publisher pays you, it is very likely they will take the agent’s 15 percent.
As I said last week, there are many piglets at the trough. Your 3,000 dollars may end up closer to 1,000 dollars per book.
I know authors who have 20, 30, 40 books in the class. That is potentially a lot of money. You do not have to be traditionally published to be eligible, but you do need a book notable enough for Anthropic to have trained on, and you need to have registered your copyright.
Speaking of class actions, we have another one.
Audible Class Action: Purchase vs. License
Jonathan: On August 28, a couple of plaintiffs filed a class action against Amazon’s Audible. They say Audible markets audiobooks as purchases, but the terms of service grant only a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license that Audible can revoke at any time. That is not the same as purchasing.
This is just the filing. Nothing has happened yet. It could take a while to unfold.
A little housekeeping. Our thumbnail has us in Starship Trooper suits. Yes, that was Starship Troopers. We are going to pattern thumbnails after the zeitgeist topic, which we now do at the end of each episode. We will discuss something about American culture, from books, movies, or TV, and how it relates to how authors should approach their tactics.
Thomas: We will not do any hard news after the zeitgeist story. If you do not care for the zeitgeist topic, you will not miss anything by leaving.
Copyright Office During the Government Shutdown
Thomas: We are talking about the importance of registering your copyright. There has been drama because the United States Copyright Office is closed due to the government shutdown.
Jonathan: Closed.
Thomas: We say “closed,” but can you clarify?
Jonathan: During a shutdown, 70 percent of the government is still operating. The Copyright Office website is still functional. You can still register your copyright online. If you show up in person, that will not work.
Thomas: To be clear, the website still allows you to submit your copyright, but they are not going to issue the certificate until the government reopens.
You still want to submit your copyright now, because you will get that timestamp.
Jonathan: You will be backdated.
Thomas: Statutory damages are what matter for cases like the Anthropic case and other big cases moving forward. When you register is important. If the copyright is not registered fast enough, you are not eligible for statutory damages.
In reality, for authors, especially indie authors who file electronically, this is a non-story. The website still works. The government will be slower, but you do not need the paperwork back immediately. Do not panic.
The reason the government is closed is because the Democrats are using the filibuster to block the budget bill. We have got to get rid of the filibuster to restore balance between the branches of government. Neither the executive branch nor the judicial branch requires 60 percent. By hamstringing itself, the legislative branch pushes decisions to the other two branches. Our whole system gets out of balance.
Our congressmen and senators need to find their courage and take responsibility for running the government rather than shuffling it off. End of rant.
Jonathan: That was a short one.
New Medical Fact Checker Tool
Thomas: This connects with last week’s rant about first aid and medical misinformation in books. I threatened to create a medical fact checker, and I did.
It does more than check first aid. It checks trauma scenes. If someone gets into a fight, it helps you accurately describe the effects. If you have never been punched in the face, you might portray it incorrectly. You could have someone punch you in the face to write it better, or you could use the medical fact checker and avoid getting punched in the face.
Jonathan: At a Novel Marketing conference, I will punch you in the face. You will find out.
Thomas: I do not know if Texas is a mutual-combat state. My recommendation is not to get punched, not to get into a car accident, not to get shot, or whatever you are doing to your poor characters. Use the medical fact checker.
I even added a mode that notes fantasy elements. If someone casts a healing spell, it knows fantasy worlds exist.
It also handles historical settings. If your Roman physician uses leeches, it will adapt. It helps you find first-aid anachronisms. If someone in the 1890s uses antibiotics, it will flag that.
If you are a patron, you can use it for free at patronToolbox.com. If you are not, you can become a patron for 10 dollars and get this and 50 to 60 other tools.
Sora 2: New Social Network and Book Marketing
Jonathan: Next frontier on AI. Sora 2 and what that could mean for book marketing. Joanna Penn sent Thomas an article by Joe Lamba… Jeeva… about how Sora 2 and ChatGPT e-commerce will change how people shop.
Thomas: I got Sora 2 today, and I will be giving away a Sora 2 activation code to one person here live. Leave a comment saying “I want a code.” I will pick someone randomly. I will also pick someone from the replay.
Sora 2 is OpenAI’s new social network. It is also a TikTok clone. If you are swiping TikTok and think, this would be better if it were all AI slop, this is that.
You can give it permission to use your face and put yourself into a scene from your book. Describe the scene. I am riding a dragon with blue scales over a desert. It will put you in it.
It is a fun toy. The article Joanna sent asked what the next step is. Right now it is invite-only toy mode. Post “I want a code” live or on the replay.
Eventually this will be used for many things. One point in the article was that people will use tools like this to see themselves using a product, wearing a sweater or a watch, or holding the book.
ChatGPT is great for high-consideration purchases. It is not good at impulse buys. Impulse buys tend to be on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Amazon. This new social network is meant to enable impulse buys. It could let you, as an author, target readers more directly.
It is like Cap’n Crunch’s “Oops, All Berries.” This is TikTok, oops, all AI slop.
The big question is user retention. When people get access, will they come back? Everyone will want to put themselves in a scene. You can also set privacy levels so friends can put you in scenes, or even make your face available to the public. I do not recommend that.
I tried to make a video of Sam Altman dodging bullets like the Matrix, but turning them into tennis balls. People will abuse this. Be careful.
Shopping Inside ChatGPT and Amazon Rufus
Thomas: This will be combined with shopping in the app. The other big news is that ChatGPT is experimenting with checking out inside ChatGPT.
I saw the headlines. I spent 30 minutes trying to buy something inside ChatGPT. I tried to buy one of Jonathan’s books. It did not work. Then I tried Kelly Jo Wilson’s Etsy. It is only certain Etsy sellers. So it is not live for everyone yet.
Jonathan: I did some research to see if I could get the integration to work. There is no integration yet. Shopify does not have it for me.
Thomas: In the next few weeks, Etsy will roll out to more accounts. Shopify will get turned on for real. You will be able to buy and check out inside ChatGPT.
We will follow this closely. It could become a powerful advertising tool, and there is an advantage to being an early adopter. You could use Sora 2 to make a promo for your book that might go viral. Post “I want a code” once, please. I will pick someone live and another next week from the replay.
I also played with Rufus, Amazon’s AI. Amazon will not integrate with ChatGPT. They want you to use their AI. Rufus has gotten better, but it is still not very good. Amazon needs to up its game because OpenAI could eat their lunch.
Fortunately for Amazon, they are part owners of Anthropic. At some point I think they may swap and have Anthropic power Rufus, and then Rufus will get really good.
Jonathan: Keep in mind this would not just be a marketing tactic. This could be a main line of income if people shop through ChatGPT. The shift from Google has already happened. People ask ChatGPT for their next book rather than hunting on Amazon.
This could become a main line of discoverability. If Shopify integrates with ChatGPT and people look for books through ChatGPT, it becomes more viable to have a web store that integrates with the AI search tool.
Keep an eye on this. This is a tactical shift.
Thomas: Doug says Amazon should just buy Anthropic. Anthropic just did a Series F. Their current valuation is 183 billion dollars, which is a crazy amount of money. Even for Amazon, that is not a simple purchase.
Author Media Social and Novel Marketing Conference
Thomas: Quick news. I have lowered the price for AuthorMedia.social to 9 dollars. There was confusion since the Patron Toolbox is 10 dollars and the one-time price to get onto AuthorMedia.social was 10.
One person signed up for AuthorMedia.social and wondered why they did not have access to the toolbox. The purpose of the fee is not to make money. It is to keep spammers out. There are many ways to get in for free, including being a student of Obscure No More, being a patron, taking the five-year plan, or attending the Novel Marketing Conference.
Speaking of the conference, there are only nine standard tickets left. There is a very good chance it will sell out this year.
Jonathan: We were close last year. We are tracking ahead this year.
New AI Models: Claude 4.5 Sonnet and Grok 4 Fast
Jonathan: Yay, AI. Claude 4.5 Sonnet and Grok 4 Fast represent the latest leaps in large language models. Anthropic dropped Claude 4.5 Sonnet on September 30, 2025, positioning it as their most intelligent model to date.
Claude is generally considered the best AI for writing. If you use AI to augment writing your books, this is an obvious upgrade.
Nerdy Novelist on YouTube says this is a solid upgrade from older Sonnets, especially for outlines, revisions, and content creation. If you prioritize affordability and reliability for writing, use Sonnet. For premium creative needs, stick with Opus.
Thomas: Sudowrite already added support for Claude 4.5. Claude is the go-to model for people who write books with AI. It is not the best for research or manuscript analysis because its context window is small, but it is very good at following instructions and writing.
I shifted Chapterize from Claude 4.0 to Claude 4.5. I tweaked the prompt. Now it is close to perfect in our tests. It preserves author notes. A patron was leaving notes in parentheses in her rough dictation. Those notes were getting cut. Now they are preserved. It fixes homophones and punctuation, preserves wording, and keeps notes. Chapterize is much better.
I have swapped a dozen Patron Toolbox tools to Claude 4.5. Many will be better now. But that 200,000-token context window is still a blocker.
Which leads us to Grok 4 Fast. Grok 4 Fast is not quite as smart as Grok 4, maybe around 90 percent, but it has a 2 million token context window.
That is twice as big as Gemini’s 1 million window, which was five times bigger than Claude’s 200,000.
With Grok 4 Fast, you could load every book in your series plus your latest draft and check for continuity errors. It might catch that a minor character had red hair in book two and blonde hair in the new one. I may build a Patron Toolbox tool for this.
Jonathan: I once got the wrong eye for a character who had lost one. A tool like this would help.
Thomas: Justin points out Grok 4 Fast has had outages. It became the number one and two most popular model on OpenRouter. Developers always pile onto the best model. Tens of thousands will hammer your servers. Once developers pick you, you hold on.
It was Claude for a while, but Claude fell behind for coding. The big thing holding Claude back is the context window. For authors and developers, context size is crucial. This 2 million token window is industry-shattering.
xAI went from last place a year ago to first place now. Never bet against Elon Musk. His ability to hire good people and do amazing things is remarkable. These are interesting times.
New Toolbox: Event Finder
Jonathan: There is a new toolbox tool, and I am excited about this one. I asked Thomas for it. Event Finder.
Showing up to an author event is easy. Knowing an author event exists in time to apply is the hard part. This tool scans for upcoming events near you that fit your genre and audience.
It could be a romance convention, a fantasy con, a local craft fair, or a major book festival. The tool brings you relevant options.
Instead of searching “book conventions near me” with a time window, let Event Finder uncover the best opportunities so you can do face-to-face sales, which have the highest conversion rate in my experience.
Thomas: Jeremiah Freely was one of the first to try it. He posted on Top Social that it derailed his morning routine because the ideas were so good.
It gives you a short list, then a detailed analysis of each event and why it is a good fit based on your genre and target audience. If you target homeschoolers, it gives you different events than if you target gun enthusiasts, or romance fans. It can even include a strategy for approaching an event.
Could you do this on your own with Google? Yes. Would it take forever? Yes. Google is not good at this kind of searching.
Give it a shot. Please give me feedback. I have privacy set to maximum. I cannot see what you post or what responses you get. If it is not working, I will not know unless you tell me.
If you have ideas for other tools, let me know.
Quick note. Cosmark, a conservative AI based on Alexander McCree’s work, is running an experimental version in the Patron Toolbox. Some people wanted a theology checker. It is shockingly good at checking the theology of your manuscript. Upload your book and say, “I am a Southern Baptist. Please review the theology.” It cites sources in the Bible. Cosmark can now read manuscripts.
The Piracy Debate
Jonathan: This is a fun story I have been tracking for five days. It is 30 years old, but it reignited this past week on Book Twitter.
The debate is not whether pirating books is legal. It is currently about whether pirating books is moral. The pro-piracy argument is that book purchases are for the privileged, and not everyone has access to libraries, Kindle Unlimited, or other free sources. The anti-piracy side points out that many authors are below the poverty line in book earnings. It is estimated publishers lose as much as 30 percent of earnings to piracy. It could be higher for indies, who lack the resources to shut sites down. That does not even account for series being canceled because a book was pirated so much.
Thomas: I was there in the beginning. I fought piracy battles on the Linux trenches in 2005.
First, I push back on the “30 percent lost” claim. The way these statistics get used is disingenuous. The music industry did similar math 10 to 15 years ago. They would say a million people downloaded a Metallica album on Napster at 10 dollars, so that is 10 million dollars lost. That assumes all those people would have purchased at full price. In reality, most pirates would never have been customers.
Basic economics has a demand curve. As price goes up, demand goes down. What solved it for music was making music cheaper and easier. Spotify killed the piracy sites. It was not about lawsuits. It was about price sensitivity and convenience.
There is a deeper question. Until the late 18th century, there was no real concept of intellectual property. You kept intellectual property safe by keeping it secret. Thomas Jefferson pushed patents and copyrights to advance the useful arts and sciences. The original copyright was 14 years, with a 7-year extension. After 21 years, the work entered the public domain to be remixed and reprinted.
Copyright got broken by Disney through the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act,” extending terms again and again. Now it is 70-plus years past the life of the author. Remixing has gone away as a cultural source. Culture is less healthy when touchstones are locked up by a handful of decision makers. People still violate copyright constantly on social platforms, because culture wants to remix.
Walt Disney did not create Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. Those were remixes of older stories. Eventually Disney made original work, but the company extended copyright to protect earlier work and revenue.
Is breaking the law with piracy the answer? I do not think so. I remember being convicted on this and deleting everything I had downloaded.
My book is licensed under Creative Commons, a some-rights-reserved license, not all-rights-reserved. Even if I registered my copyright, I do not think I would have been eligible for this settlement.
As for Steamboat Willie, it is now in the public domain because Disney could not extend again. The terrible things they predicted have not happened.
Copyright law does not serve individual authors. There are few lawyers who focus on it for authors. Most copyright lawyers work for big corporations. It is a tool for big companies to crush individuals.
Jonathan: Most people in the debate argue, “I do not have money, so I should not be kept from reading books.” They claim a right to consume because they lack resources.
The replies are full of people pointing out libraries.
Thomas: The “no access to libraries” line is unconvincing. What they are really saying is, I do not value books. That is why it is triggering for authors. It is hard to hear readers say they do not value your work.
I am all for authors having an exclusive right to exploit their work for 14 years, with a 7-year extension. Then write something new. We would have the conclusion to Game of Thrones if George R. R. Martin had to write something new to continue getting paid.
Zeitgeist: The Return of the Strong Leader in the U.S. Military
Thomas: Ready for Zeitgeist? Time to shift from breaking news to bigger trends. If you understand how culture is changing, you can skate to where the puck is headed.
For the first time, this story is from Jonathan. Which means it is probably about the Marines.
Jonathan: This past week, there was a seminal moment in the U.S. military. We have not seen something like this in 20 years. First, the Department of Defense was renamed the Department of War, reflecting the outlook of the new Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.
Hegseth summoned all the generals and senior NCOs to Quantico. He gave them a speech. You can find it on YouTube, about 49 minutes long.
He covered 10 changes he is making to the military. The days of DEI are gone. We are no longer the Department of Woke. We are the Department of War. Physical standards have been reset to age-normed, gender-neutral tests.
Every uniformed member, from the newest private to the highest general, will take a PT test and a height-weight check twice a year.
Thomas: His fat-shaming of the generals played very well with enlisted. People like to see leaders held to the same standards. Rules for thee but not for me is not morale-inspiring.
Jonathan: There were the fun lines like “no more dudes in dresses.” Easy to focus on because it is funny.
But the big thing is that zero-defect culture is going away. Zero-defect culture means you can never make a mistake. If you do, it goes in your paperwork and your career is done. That produces risk-averse policies. Officers play it safe. They hold back until someone else tells them what to do, so they can shift the blame.
Suicides can mark your record, even when you cannot control it. Zero-defect culture is toxic. It turns officers into checklist managers.
Thomas: George Washington would have failed under zero-defect culture. As a colonel, he built Fort Necessity and made a big mistake. He cleared trees only enough to build the fort, not out to musket range. The French and Indians attacked from the tree line and negated the fort’s advantage.
Washington later became the exact general we needed. Screening him out for that one mistake might have cost us the country.
Jonathan: Now we are shifting back to practical results. In military terms, lethality. Every job contributes to mission accomplishment and the lethality of combat arms. The focus is on destroying the enemy. It is no longer a place for DEI candidates to be promoted for unique points. It is about being the best, regardless of color or gender.
How does this apply to authors? This is a huge cultural shift. The officer corps is formed of college graduates. Many stories authors write draw from the American military tradition. There is a surge in recruitment because people love SecWar Hegseth. That means a surge in recruits and families who appreciate military stories. You need to understand how military culture is transforming, because you will be interacting with readers in a new military.
Thomas: This is the inevitable outcome of the turning we are in. Hard times make strong men. Hegseth is advocating for the military to become strong in a literal sense. You have to do the pushups, even if you are a general.
Jonathan: In basic training they are getting rid of hazing that crosses the line. Racism and sexual harassment are still illegal. But now drill instructors can swear. They can put hands on recruits within reason. Some recruit platoon woke up and got reintroduced to the new military.
Thomas: I was reading about World War II boot camps. Drill instructors were mean and aggressive. The troops did not resent it, because they knew they were going to war. They would rather suffer in basic than face the enemy with people who did not suffer in basic.
Part of the appeal of the 101st Airborne was survivability. They wanted to serve with experts and warriors.
The standard of “would you want this for your son or grandson,” which Hegseth used, is a whole realignment.
We did not want to offend the enemy. We renamed it from Department of War to Department of Defense. The Korean War became a “police action.” That was the era of weak men. That era has ended. The era of strong men who impose their will has come.
This matters for protagonists. Readers are longing for strong characters. We see it in romance with dominant male characters. We see it in male-audience fiction with men who impose their will on others.
If your male leads are weak, effeminate, unassuming, and inoffensive, they will not resonate the way they did. This is not the time for Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That is a third-turning book. We are in the fourth turning.
Jonathan: Your heroes need a line they will not allow others to cross. They need the capacity to prevent that line from being crossed, physically, magically, or socially. This far, no further.
Thomas: Your protagonist needs to impose his will on someone or something in the very first pages. You need to demonstrate a strong protagonist. He can grow, but if he is weak and lame, and only learns to become strong late, you have to compensate for that in marketing. Otherwise readers will lose interest.
Captain America is a great model. Weak body, strong soul. The serum took what was inside and projected it outside. He became a strong warrior for the rights of others. They spent the first third of the movie showing his inner strength, so when he got physical strength, it landed.
Contrast with Iron Man. He is strong intellectually, weak morally. His arc is about gaining moral strength. Thor is strong physically, immature. His arc is about wisdom and humility.
As you put together characters, decide on purpose how they are strong and how they are weak. Those three examples are strong in different ways. When they come together, it is interesting.
We are in the hard-times-make-strong-men era. This makes weak men uncomfortable. The shift we will see in corporate America is fewer committees and less decision-by-consensus. Companies that win will empower strong leaders to make decisions without consensus.
Elon Musk companies are an example. xAI outmaneuvered others fast. He hires the best people, gives them authority, and gives them freedom to fail. Rockets explode, they learn, they launch again. They iterate faster. SpaceX now delivers most of the kilograms to space.
A similar leader in history was Nebuchadnezzar. He gave authority and power to someone. If they produced, he rewarded them. If not, he removed them. Weak men want to hide behind committees. Mistakes were made. No one knows by whom. That age is ending.
Jonathan: Everyone hates that. It has never been good. When you present that in a novel, the bad guy hides behind something else because he lacks courage to stand by his words or actions. Think Wormtongue behind the throne in The Two Towers. It is not until the strong man arrives, Gandalf, that the king is freed. The elf, the dwarf, and the man walk in and start knocking people down. It is so satisfying.
People are trapped in systems of committees and check boxes. Someone says the wrong thing, it gets caught on TikTok, and they are gone. People want leaders who stand up and back up their words. We need that freedom back.
What were you going to say, Thomas?
Thomas: We are out of time, but I want to pick a winner. I scrolled and stopped. Our winner is Kamy Tang. Camy, reach out to me and I will give you your code.
If you did not win, as soon as this goes to replay, leave a regular comment and I will use a legit tool to pick a winner early next week. Post “I want a code.”
Let us know what you think of the new format with the zeitgeist at the end, and what you think of our analysis of the age of the strong man. Conan is coming. Conan is coming.
I am Thomas Stet Jr.
Jonathan: And I am Jonathan Schroer, Jr.
Thomas: Live long and prosper.
