Saturday Stuff

A slightly chilly but sunny Saturday here in Jackson County 60 miles northeast of Atlanta. A good day to get some work done and that included making a squash casserole for tonight's supper. Here are a few random items:

• Amazon is getting a lot of backlash from its price-check application even though many malls offer such apps. Add to that, its new program for authors that prohibits them from selling their books anywhere but Amazon. Sounds like a bad deal to me. My satire about it is here: Octopus Books Launches TDP-or-Else Publishing Program to Control Reading from Cradle to Grave
• You can find an article about the program in the Huffington Post here.
• So far, I'm getting no entries in my book give-away contest. Kind of surprised. Hint: you don't really have to be psychic to tell me what you think I left in the magic cabin in my novels. Since nobody will probaby get the answer right, a guess will get you into the random drawing for a free paperback copy of Sarabande.
• The roofers will be here next week to fix the hole in the roof caused by that tree that fell far away in the middle of the yard and somehow jumped over toward the house. Fortunately, the homeowners insurance will cover most of the costs.
• If you're an author or publisher and have the dates and times for bricks-and-mortar book signings and other events, I'll be happy to put them in Book Bits, my daily posting of links for writers. Send me the date, time, location (including city and state), and the name of the book and/or the name of the  event to malcolmrcampbell[at]yahoo[dot]com.
• If you're looking for books for holiday giving, my list of the 40+ books I reviewed in 2011 is here. Perhaps you'll find something you like.

I hope you're having a nice weekend with either plenty of rest and relaxation or a lot of exciting things to do.

--Malcolm