Writers can be a lonely bunch, which is why every writer needs a writing buddy. Mine just happens to be my cat, Kirby. This morning she made herself comfortable on my desk, behind my computer – trying to catch a few rays of sunshine coming in through the window.

What you don’t see in this picture is Kirby sniffing at everything on my desk (my writing tools must smell good) and batting at my pens, paperclips and anything else that’s easy for her paws to move. She also has a habit of biting at, and even eating paper, if it’s handy to do so.

Okay, maybe she’s not the perfect writing buddy, but she does keep me company and definitely keeps me amused as I work through the day’s business.

Who is your writing buddy?

Last week I wrote a post Meditate your way to better writing where I talked about how meditation can quiet the mind and give your brain a “rest.” I argued that when the mind is emptied out of all the distractions that life throws at us, it makes room to be more creative and improve your writing.

I’m continuing this theme of healthy ways to better writing (a theme I did not plan ahead of time, it just kinda happened) by talking about exercise and how it can have a positive impact on your creativity and writing. Exercise is obviously one of the most healthy activities one can pursue as it helps keep you in shape and reduces the risk of a lot of diseases.

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I know a lot of my readers on this blog are interested in ebooks, publishing news, self-publishing, writing and so forth. How do you keep up with all these topics without spending all day searching the interwebs. Of course Google is probably the first place you’ll search. But Google has tools that will allow you to stay current on just about any topic without wasting a lot of time.

When I first began Brad’s Reader, my main focus was on literature and writing. Since the world of literature is so big, I needed a way to see all the important bits of news and related blog posts at-a-glance. What did I use? I created a Google Alert using the search term “literary news”.

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I just returned from spending a few days in San Diego on family business (hence my lack of posts this week). While my reason for going there was quite sad, it was nice to get away from the cold Chicago winter and spend some time in the warm California sun and visit with my extended family.

There are a two bits I wanted to share with you regarding my trip, both dealing with ebooks.

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Happy New Year everyone. 2009 is finally behind us (for better or worse, depending on your situation). Personally, I’m looking forward to 2010 because I always see a new year as a fresh start, a chance to start over.

I’m going to keep this post short. After today I’ll be back posting about writing, publishing and ebooks so stay tuned.

Have a Happy New Year and please stay safe!

P.S. I will be posting a Friday Link Love this week, but it might be a little late.

The past 10 years have seen a lot of changes in the publishing world. The biggest change of them all is ebooks. 10 years ago ebooks were a still a novelty enjoyed by mostly techies/geeks and were a popular product for online multi-level marketing schemes where ebook topics dealt mostly with get-quick-rich marketing methods and the like. The ebooks were of poor quality and filled with grammar/spelling errors. This probably did more to damage the reputation of ebooks than anything else.

Fast forward to 2009 and ebooks are becoming much more mainstream (still a small segment of the publishing industry, but growing) and publishers are now scrambling to figure out how to deal with this new form of consuming our favorite literary works. Add to that the family of ebook readers from Sony, Amazon and now Barnes & Noble, I think it’s safe to say that ebooks aren’t going anywhere.

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I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone on the intertubes a happy holiday! The snow has been falling in the Chicago area, meaning we might have a white Christmas this year – but playing havoc with the roads.  I’m planning to lay low, visit some family and try to relax as much as I can.

I also plan on getting a lot of writing done. I have two fiction projects I desperately want to finish so I can make them available on Smashwords (aff link) as soon as possible. These two works will be available for free so everyone can sample my fiction without forking over your hard earned cash

Have a great holiday over the next few days and please stay safe. I’ll back to my usual posting schedule either this weekend or early next week.

- Brad

P.S. There will be no Friday Link Love this week.

The current Brad’s Reader Giveaway contest is now closed for submissions. A winner will be picked and announced either later today or tomorrow. Thank you all who submitted an entry. I was approving your comments for as long as I could until I finally had to cut them off. As I said before, the winner will be picked completely at random.

If you don’t win today’s contest, don’t worry, there will be at least one more this month. I’m not saying what the prize will be or even how you will enter – you’ll just have to stand by.

Thanks again for all your comments. I enjoyed seeing what everyone is reading and will be adding a few of these titles to my growing reading list. I hope you visit Brad’s Reader again and write more comments, it always makes my day!

Good luck!

Black Friday is long gone and now Cyber Monday is here. With a slumping economy retailers are trying to squeeze as much business as they can during this holiday season, even if it means deeply discounting their products.

I’ve been scouring the web for the best deals around and here is what I found.

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There’s been a lot of controversy over the price wars between Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target over their recently adopted practice of selling bestsellers at deeply discounted prices (less than $9.00 for some new releases). Steve Riggio, CEO of Barnes & Noble appears to be unconcerned.

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