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 🙂

Publishing: Well, it’s all kicked off this week. Judith Griggs, editor of Cooks Source, has been caught infringing the copyright of multiple individuals and corporations. If you write about food, you might want to check out the facebook page to see what’s been dug up so far. It all started when blogger Monica Gaudio was congratulated by a friend on being published by the magazine. When she wrote to the magazine demanding an apology and recompense (to be sent to the Columbia School of Journalism) and received a letter that was a perfect example of plagiarism bingo. The Smart Bitches have started a googlebombing campaign, Cooks Source facebook page is in pieces and Absolute Write have set up a peanut gallery.

Meanwhile, in epublishing, LibraryThing considers potential feedback loops, Teleread wades into the eyestrain debate in eInk v LCD,  agency pricing has come to the UK, which has pissed off customers by doubling the prices of some books overnight, and smuggled Kindles help Chinese sneak around the national firewalls. All of which deserves more discussion than I’ve given it here, but that VCooks Source story is just that little bit too juicy!

Interest-Piquing: Maureen Johnson talks about the irony of calling for books for boys when there’s so little by women on school syllabuses. Courtney Milan objects to a new anti-piracy website (and so do I!) that infringes privacy instead.

Inspiring: A brief history of early pornography. It doesn’t look like Cocktoberfest is going ahead over at EM Lynley’s blog (well, not under that name now!) but I thought I might share some of the resources I stumbled across in the process of writing my post. Gotta love the things you find yourself googling in this profession 🙂

Procrastination: Lots of languages to learn! I’m determined not to be that tourist. Still, a friend of mine related a wonderful anecdote about two men she saw in Amsterdam, who were chatting away in English until they reached the point in small talk when they asked each other where they were from, at which point they switched to Dutch.