"People write for different reasons and, from the very beginning, I've told y'all that I write for you, that it's more than just a paycheck. Well, I'm about to prove that what I've said is true." - Michelle "M." Leighton, in a blog post titled "The Final Tale...

"Had Prozac been available last century, Baudelaire's 'spleen,' Edgar Allan Poe's moods, the poetry of Sylvia Plath, the lamentations of so many other poets, everything with a soul would have been silenced," New York Times bestseller Nicholas Nassim Taleb writes in his latest book, Antifragile: Things That Gain...

Way before musicians and actors cornered the market on misbehavior, writers were flooding hotel rooms and testing their livers' upper limits. My new book, Literary Rogues, turns back the clock to consider these historical (and, in some cases, living) legends, including Oscar Wilde, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest...

"Have you seen the new book?" a banner on Tim Ferriss' blog reads. "Banned by 700-plus bookstores nationwide!" His marketing partner, BitTorrent, adds that the book in question, The 4-Hour Chef, is "poised to be the most banned book in U.S. history."

What is so controversial...

Last week, Lance Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles over doping allegations. Baseball has had its fair share of drug problems, most recently involving the MVP of the All-Star Game Melky Cabrera (who could still win the batting title, which would be a huge black eye for...

Ever since Fifty Shades of Grey topped the Kindle chart and New York Times bestseller list, dozens of similar-sounding books (ebooks, mostly) have appeared in the Kindle store. Some are intentionally hilarious; some are accidentally hilarious. From Fifty Shames of Earl Grey to Fifty Shades of Louisa May, here's a...

"It's official. I've become a prude." -- Mitch Albom in the Detroit Free Press

Thus begins Albom's tirade against what he sees as a flood of "racy" novels, movies, and television shows. From Fifty Shades of Grey to Girls to the vibrator comedy Hysteria, female sexuality is taking...

"Most of the stuff on Smashwords is porn," Jonathan Bloom, whose ebook Hell Is Above Us is available on Smashwords, tweeted recently. "I feel like someone trying to sell a homemade quilt on the street next to a line of high-end hookers."

On Saturday, February 18, PayPal contacted...

"Maybe nobody will care about hand-copied books 50 years from now, but I do. When I read a book that's been painstakingly transcribed by hand, I'm handling an object that took a scribe six months to a year to copy," Johannes...

Late last year, I signed up for a review copy of Draculas, an ebook authored by self-publishing guru Joe Konrath and friends. Hundreds of bloggers and reviewers signed up for review copies. Unfortunately, one of the e-mails sent out from Konrath's crew was CC'd -- and not BCC'd -- to...

"One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten."

In less capable hands, such a prompt would have resulted in a book that simply replaced the word "insect" with "kitten." But Quirk Books wisely commissioned an extremely...

When I tell friends that I'm going to see Filter, there are two questions that come up: 1) When did they get back together?; and 2) Isn't their singer the Terminator's brother?

The answers are: 1) Although vocalist Richard Patrick formed Army of Anyone with ex-Stone Temple Pilots members...

There's a virus going around the Internet right now that threatens to change the way you look at the world. It seems to be infecting unpublished and "under-published" (unsuccessful) writers at an alarming rate.

Once you're infected, everyone you come into contact with becomes an "arrogant gatekeeper" standing between you,...

I asked literary Twitterers to use the hashtag #WhyIDrink to raise a glass to the publishing stories that drove them up the wall in 2010. From Snooki's book deal to "write" a novel to James Frey's fiction "factory," here are the controversial stories that generated the most votes. Tell us...

Six days before the Steve Martin debacle at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, the comedian gave a delightful reading from his new novel, An Object of Beauty, at the Union Square Barnes & Noble.

"Mr. Martin is here tonight as an author," Barnes & Noble events...

While fond memories of Oktoberfest brats and beers may seem like a lifetime ago now that colder weather is here, that doesn't mean the party ends when the beer gardens close.

"We feature 50 great beer gardens around the city in our app, and all but two of those venues...

When writing sex scenes, there's often a fine line between lust and laughter. The Bad Sex in Fiction Award, presented annually by the British magazine Literary Review, highlights the "best of the worst" sex scenes published in literary fiction.

The judges hope "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless,...

I have a confession: I'm 32 years old and I read a young adult novel about werewolves.

I'm not afraid to admit this, because Andrea Cremer writes with an accomplished and intelligent voice that won't give adult readers headaches. Cremer's Nightshade is a smart blend of romance, action, philosophy,...

This past Halloween weekend, over 1,000 Neil Gaiman fans descended on the House on the Rock and surrounding area in rural Spring Green, Wisconsin for the Gathering of American Gods, a celebration of Gaiman's 2001 novel.

The three-day convention/fan gathering included panel discussions, a costume contest judged by Neil...

The first thing you feel is its weight in your hands, which screams, this is an important book. First Step 2 Forever is a hardcover, multi-colored monstrosity that clocks in at 240 pages... half of which feature full-page pictures of the 16-year-old Bieber. This should please the majority of his...