Today's Required Reading (Updated)

It's Friday. If you are looking for the latest Deluge installment, you got a free short-story instead, in celebration of The Secret Life of Laird Barron. But if you read that already, here are some alternatives.

Russell Dickerson goes step-by-step through how he created the covers for A Gathering of Crows, The Rising: Deliverance, and Kelli Owen's Six Days. Fascinating stuff, especially if you enjoy learning about the creative process of other artists.

Nick Mamatas reveals how one particularly annoying marketer is hijacking CNN's iReport feature to post spam for his various author clients, the latest of which is a "press release" for Richard Godwin's Apostle Rising. He is then deluged with anonymous attacks from supposed "readers" who don't seem to grasp that he wasn't attacking the author, but simply pointing out a) the fallacy of CNN's iReport system and b) how inept this marketer is.

That should keep you busy until tomorrow. I'll be busy, too. Although the digital rights for all of my former Leisure/Dorchester titles reverted back to me on January 1st, 2011, in the months since then, Leisure digital editions have appeared on Kindle, Nook, Sony, and now iBooks. Leisure claims "it must be a glitch". I'll be busy today planning an appropriate response for what is, at this point, clear fraud or at least stunning incompetence. More on that next week…

Update: It looks like you guys got started early. Have I told you lately that I love you?