Do audiobooks count as reading?

Does listening to an audiobook "count" as having read the book? I say yes.

Listening to Books

(Spoiler alert, if you haven't read Roots.) 

Speaking of counting, does anyone want to tally the number of times the author mentions running in the piece? Maybe I am just super-sensitive today, having been "too busy" to keep up my own (unimpressive) exercise regimen lately...

The best fictional libraries in pop culture

Which is your favorite? I'm partial to Hogwarts, myself.

The Best Fictional Libraries in Pop Culture 

Slow living.

My client Kathreen Ricketson is on a year-long road trip with her husband and two school-age kids right now. She'll write a book about the experience (to be published by Roost Books in 2014) when it's over, but I'm loving her occasional dispatches for now:

Some thoughts on slow living

Those of you in cold climates will either love or hate her sunburned descriptions of a lazy beach day.

Do you have any daily rituals you do with extra care, extra mindfulness?

This is funny to five people, but four of them read this blog.

My client Dan Wilbur is cracking himself up with jokes about Nabokov's Pale Fire right now:

http://betterbooktitles.com/post/41702695192

His book is delightful too.

Would you make more money if you self-published? Maybe. Maybe not.

A thoughtful post from John Scalzi, in which he tries to put real numbers to the question of how much more money he would have made, had he self-published his most recent novel.

The eBook Path to Riches: Possibly Steeper Than Assumed.

How a fantasy cover is made, plus contest housekeeping

I thought this was terrific (I wrote "fantastic" and then changed it, you're welcome!): artist Michael Whelan's extremely detailed blog post on the process of developing the cover for the final book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

The Making of A Memory of Light

(via Galleycat)


Also, as I never heard from Kinley re: her contest win, let's move on to the next winner. I am rushing a bit today so I'm not going to cut and paste images from the random.org site, but our new winner is.... (drumroll)...

Stephanie! 

Stephanie, I've sent you an email-- provided you're still interested, let's talk details on the critique.

The new year has brought lots of good things my way, but it's keeping me extremely busy, too. Hope the same is true for all of you!

Paging Kinley Baker!

Kinley, I still haven't heard from you regarding your win in the critique contest! Please get in touch with my via email ASAP so we can set this up-- if I haven't heard from you by Thursday the 10th, I'll run the random number generator again and give someone else a shot.

Happy New Year, all! How are those fresh new writing projects going? I hit the ground running with work projects last week and haven't come up for air much (I do love a mixed metaphor, don't you?) but I miss all of you on the blog. Any ideas for posts you'd like to see?

CRITIQUE CONTEST: And the winner is...

Kinley Baker, come on down! Email me and we'll talk about the critique details.

Everyone else, thanks so much for entering. We'll do this again very soon.

Happy New Year!