How worthwhile is it for a writer to invest time in social media for marketing purposes, and how much time? Should we torture ourselves to do it if it isn't in our DNA? Does it really work?

You don't have to trash your memoir material in order to make it into a book, but before you send out that query to publishers, just consider whether your life would be better as fiction.

As of December 7, short stories by Christopher Buckley, Edna O'Brien (and by January Curtis Sittenfeld, and presumably many others) are available on Kindle, courtesy of a deal with the Atlantic Monthly.

I have it on good authority that starting tomorrow we'll "share" our content on our iphones for no advance. People will say things like "I guess I'll write a book" and no one will find it unusual.