Wow, I spoke too soon.  Normally I publish the daily reading around noon, and I should have waited today, too.  Lots of cool stuff since then.

Ellie Robins at Melville House talks about a Guardian piece on Melville House‘s Not The Booker Prize party, in which Sam Jordison discusses “whether literary criticism [in broadsheet book reviews] adds anything to our appreciation of books, and whether the limited pools of reviewers and books reviewed skews the picture of what there is to read out there.”

My first-impression answers would be “not much” and “definitely.”

Also at Melville House, Dan O’Connor explores the trend of authors opening indie bookstores.  Considering that my Top Ten dream jobs include both author and bookstore owner, I can believe this is the best way to save the indies.  Authors have a vested interest in keeping the bookselling field competitive, and thus efficient.

According to Publishers Weekly, e-book sales rose 116 percent in August, which is intriguing because my own e-book purchases probably rose the same amount.  Am I the cosmic tofu?

Mike Shatzkin at The Idea Logical Company discusses how publishers can market in ways authors cannot.  One marketing tactic described reached 650 thousand potential customers (that’s the entire population of El Paso, Memphis, or Baltimore) 40 thousand of whom actually responded.  This is why marketing is a publisher’s job, not a writer’s.  (Thanks to Jane Friedman for pointing me toward this one.)