If you’re looking for dirt-cheap prices on a few upcoming major hardcover book releases, then you’re in luck. Online giant Amazon.com (full disclosure – I’m an Amazon affiliate) and retail giant Wal-Mart are in a heated price war over upcoming titles by some heavy-hitting authors.

For consumers, this is great, especially for the upcoming holiday season right around the corner. Major titles to be released are Stephen King’s Under the Dome; John Grisham’s Ford Country; and James Patterson’s I, Alex Cross – the latest in his ongoing series. For booksellers, publishers and authors though, this is a worrisome trend.

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Science fiction and fantasy author Neil Gaiman is going to write a short story using Twitter. To be more precise, his going to write the first 140 characters of a short story, then let other Twitterers write the rest of the story. The crowd-sourced piece of fiction, once complete, will be compiled by BBC Audiobooks and will be made available on the BBC Audiobooks website as well as iTunes as a free download.

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In today’s technology-driven, social online world, authors need a website to promote themselves and their books. Without an online presence, an author risks being thrown into obscurity. An author website should be primarily of an author’s own making (except for the design, that should be left to professionals). Their publisher (unless they are an indie author) might help them optimize their site to promote their books – that never hurts.

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I’ve been reading Dan Brown’s newest book The Lost Symbol (aff link) since it was released on Tuesday. When I bought the book at my local bookstore, I knew it wasn’t going to be a great literary achievement and I had no expectations of being enlightened. I bought the book to be entertained.

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I’m no fan of JD Salinger. I’m talking about the man, not his writing. You can read my reasoning in this earlier post What do authors owe their readers. Mr. Salinger is not helping his case in an ongoing legal battle where he wants to prevent publication of a ‘sequel’ to his infamous novel Catcher in the Rye.

You might recall that on July 1, an injunction was ordered by a judge that prevented the publication of the sequel by Swedish author Fredrik Colting called 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye. Since that ruling, groups ranging from free speech advocates, librarians, the Associated Press and others have been filing briefs with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to get the injunction lifted. The appeals court will start hearing arguments on September 3.

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I first read about Scribner’s plans to release a modified version of Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast (aff link) in this New York Times OpEd back in July, but have only now gotten around to writing about it. This story brings up a lot of questions about what publishers owe to the authors and novels they publish, especially after the author has long been deceased and can no longer speak for himself.

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I never really know what to think of most literary awards. Usually, the prestigious awards are voted on by a small committee of experts. And most of the time, they tend to pick obscure works with little mass market appeal. But at the other end of the spectrum, we have the science fiction Hugo award, where the finalists were decided by letting sci-fi fans vote for their favorite novels. The results were a little more mainstream, maybe too mainstream, according to one author.

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Today we have a special treat – an exclusive interview with author Wayne C. Long, who owns and operates LongShortStories, a website where he sells his short fiction as a subscription-based service. I first met Wayne back in 2008 after he sent me a message advertising his site – which I first wrote about in this post.

I’m going to keep this introduction short because I think the interview speaks for itself, and I hope you find Wayne’s answers as inspiring as I do. And when you get to the end of the interview, you might find a surprise!

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I’m really excited about the release of the new book by Chris Anderson, from The Long Tail blog, and plan to pre-order my copy soon. For those of you who don’t know, Chris has been leading the way in promoting ‘free’ as a new kind of business model. I advocate it here on this blog as well by encouraging and supporting authors who give away free ebooks to help promote a current title (for example).

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Iconic science fiction writer Ray Bradbury is still going strong. He writes for several hours a day, reads, mingles with visitors and still supports one of his biggest passions: Libraries. And given the recent economic meltdown, public libraries need all the help they can get. Because of high-unemployment and lower wages, libraries are seeing a bit of a comeback. But as local governments try to trim their budgets, libraries are usually the first to get the ax.

That’s where Ray Bradbury comes in.

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