I’ve just today, been on the receiving end of a flaming group of posts on an Amazon forum. I know, I know… why was I even there?  The forum was one set up for discussion of a specific author’s work – a long series, and the critiquing thereof. Like a complete neophyte, I read lots of insulting attacks heaped upon the author by people who obviously enjoyed the work enough to finish the series, to date, so I made the mistake of asking, “ whaddup...

This morning, I received an email from an eBook publisher, Mark Coker of Smashwords, who wanted to warn their authors of an upcoming threat. It seems PayPal has contacted them asking them to voluntarily remove fiction that contained scenes of deviant sex and agression including rape and bestiality, from their catalog.

I may be wrong, but today, reading a closing report on the Digital Book World expo written by Sarah Weinman for Publisher's Lunch gave me a decidedly positive feeling about the biz.  For years now, there have been so many cries of doom, destruction and the end of various institutions surrounding the publishing business that any sign the storms are lifting is good news indeed.

Yesterday morning, I looked in the mirror, after climbing out of bed (Note: climbing out. I used to jump out or roll out). I saw the tired, old reprobate looking back and instead of rubbing my eyes to dispel the image, I embranced it. For many years -- as far back as my adult memories go, I remember looking out of twelve-year-old eyes to watch the parade. Yesterday was possibly the first time my eyes felt like they'd been used for six decades.