Publishing: Cooks Source is old news; now it’s all about James Frey. He’s started a packaging company, like James Pattinson or the Sweet Valley High series. Only his terms are far, far worse. Would you sell a novel for $250 ($500 if you’re lucky)? Would you give away all rights, even to your name? Would you take financial responsibility for any legal action even if it were proved false? James Frey would like you to. Especially if you’re doing an MFA course and don’t know any better. Maureen Johnson blogs about it here, and Scalzi here. If you ever want an example of a perfectly legal way to screw writers over (unlike last week’s illegal approach) Frey’s found a winner.

Interest-Piquing: Ideomancer are looking for Junior Editors to slush reader and work with writers. It’s unpaid, but if you know the magazine and want to see what the world of publishing is like it’s a good opportunity.

Amazon is bringing Black Friday to the UK. As long as it stays online only, I’m all for getting some of that discount action, but I know enough Americans working in retail to know we don’t want the whole shebang over here. I love one of the comments on that article; hey, if Amazon chose to sell books cheaper than the wholesalers, fair play to and brick&mortar bookshops that take advantage of it.

InsPiring: So, I’m currently glomming on Marueen Johnson’s blog, as you may have gathered (I’m actually going to post something about that soon). She has a little ‘ask MJ’ segment, and the question of the day is “How can one afford to be a writer?” On the same note, it’s definitely worht reading Lifehack’s Living Self-Employed.

Procrastination: Daniel Radcliffe sings the element song on TV. I caught the end of this last night when I got back from the pub quiz,which was the best time to see it 🙂