There is a colorful new way to read Ivanhoe, Moby Dick and The Three Musketeers in the Kobo eBookstore, and it’s not through public domain ePub files.

Digital publisher Trajectory has signed a content distribution deal with Kobo to release a series of illustrated comics of classic novels through the Kobo eBookstore. The series includes more than 120 visual renditions of classics such as The Last of the Mohicans, War of the Worlds, Treasure Island, The Count of Monte Cristo, Huckleberry Finn, Alice in Wonderland and Jane Eyre.

The video embedded above gives you an idea of what they look like–follow this link to see more at Kobo.
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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Novelist Jennifer Egan will publish a complete science fiction story on The New Yorker‘s Page-Turner Twitter feed over the next few nights.

The New York Observer reported that the experiment will begin tonight at 8 p.m. ET. Egan (pictured)  has experimented in her fiction before, writing a short story disguised as a list and publishing PowerPoint fiction for her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad. Back in 2009, Electric Literature performed a similar experiment with novelist Rick Moody.

Here’s more from the author: “This is not a new idea, of course, but it’s a rich one—because of the intimacy of reaching people through their phones, and because of the odd poetry that can happen in a hundred and forty characters. I found myself imagining a series of terse mental dispatches from a female spy of the future, working undercover by the Mediterranean Sea. I wrote these bulletins by hand in a Japanese notebook that had eight rectangles on each page. The story was originally nearly twice its present length; it took me a year, on and off, to control and calibrate the material into what is now ‘Black Box.’” (Link via MB Newsfeed; image via Marion Ettlinger)

Journalists, novelists, screenwriters, bloggers and all other kinds of writers have one thing in common: we spend way, way, way too much time hunched in front of a computer.

A recent study in Australia discovered that sitting for long periods of time can actually kill you, even if you regularly exercise. The Washington Post had more: “In people 45 years and older, sitting for 11 or more hours a day led to an increased risk of death (from all causes) by about 40 percent over four years, compared to the risk of death in people who sat just four to eight hours a day, the study found. People plopped on their behinds for eight to 11 hours daily had about a 15 percent increase in risk of death.”

To help our readers fight this health problem, we rounded up Five Free Fitness & Workout Apps for your Android or Apple smartphone. Using these simple tools, you can schedule daily alerts to move, stretch and even have a short workout in your office.

Goodreads has created a massive infographic analyzing the Fifty Shades of Grey effect around the country.

Vintage has already sold ten million copies of E. L. James‘ erotica trilogy, and the literary social network discovered some fascinating trends. They charted both the geographic distribution of readers and the books that have received a bump from a new national interest in erotica.  We’ve embedded the infographic below. Here’s more from Goodreads:

The states with the highest readers per capita are located primarily in the Tri-State and New England area: New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island, and New York. Fifty Shades of Grey has given some readers a new taste for erotica, and we’ve found a jump in interest in similar books on Goodreads. Just recently, Penguin’s Berkley Books imprint snatched up Sylvia Day‘s self-published novel, Bared to You, which has generated 2,500 reviews in the past two months … Other books potentially joining the sultry summer reading list are Gabriel’s Inferno by Sylvain Reynard, Rock Me by Cherrie Lynn, Captive in the Dark by C.J. Roberts, and The Reluctant Dom by Lesli Richardson.

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The Hachette Book Group’s new ChapterShare app lets the publisher put out excerpts from a book that can be read on an author’s Facebook page.

It launched this week with exclusive excerpts from chapters of James Patterson’s upcoming novel NYPD Red (which comes out in October), as well as Michael Connelly’s The Black Box (which is slated for a November release).

AppNewser explained how it works: “In order to gain access to the content, Facebook users must “Like” the content. Then readers can read these chapters on the author’s Facebook page. And if they like what they read, they can preorder a book from the Facebook page by clicking on icons for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks or Indiebound. Readers are also encouraged to share the link to the sample chapters with their Facebook friends.” Read more

To help you put together a winning pitch for an agent, Brown Literacy Agency founder Roberta Brown shared a few tips at mediabistro.com. Brown’s literary agency represents New York Times bestsellers Sarah McCarty and Lorie O’Clare.

First and foremost, make sure that you are pitching the genre that the agency represents. For example, Brown only wants to see pitches for romance (single title and category), women’s fiction, erotica, young adult and mystery cozies. She also says that her agency only works with authors who are already published. Here is more from, Pitching An Agent: Brown Literacy Agency:

“We are only reviewing material by New York published authors seeking new representation,” said Brown. If that’s you, email a synopsis and two chapters of a proposal in an email attachment. The agency no longer accepts printed material by snail mail. Response time can be anywhere from one month to six weeks, all depending on the influx of material.

The 7th annual “Brooklyn Lit Match” teen writing contest has started accepting submissions. All of the winning entries will be compiled into an anthology which will be published by Akashic Books. The grand prize winner will also receive a new laptop.

The contest is open to high school students who reside in Brooklyn or those who attend a high school located in Brooklyn. Eligible candidates should feel free to turn in their stories, poems, essays, spoken word pieces and raps before the deadline on June 29th. Follow this link for more information.

Here’s more from the release: “A committee of publishers, editors and literary agents will select 10 finalists, including a first place winner. The 10 finalists will be invited to read their work at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 23, 2012 … Entries should be sent to Brooklyn Book Festival Lit Match, Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201 or e-mailed to ekoch@brooklynbp.nyc.gov.”

When All American Blogger Duane Lester discovered that a Missouri newspaper had allegedly plagiarized one of his blog posts, he drafted a letter and visited the newspaper with a video camera.

You can watch his entire confrontation in the video embedded above–an educational moment for all writers. Ethics Alarms called the video “the perfect and ethical way to handle a confrontation.” Follow this link to read Lester’s original article, a long piece about an audit of the Sheriff’s Office in Holt County, Missouri.

Below, we’ve embedded a copy of the letter that Lester used to assert his copyright. Writers can use his template to confront plagiarists in other corners of the Internet. Have you ever confronted a plagiarist? (Via Reddit & Ethical Alarms)

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Illustrator Laura Baran and photographer Patricia Geremia hope to raise $8,000 to fund the production of their book, Arts & Dreams. Above, we’ve embedded a video about the Kickstarter project–what do you think?

Baran and Geremia run creativity workshops to inspire children. The Arts & Dreams book will feature Baran’s hand-painted illustrations. Hay House imprint Balboa Press will publish the book.

Here’s more about the project: “The Arts & Dreams book will be a fun and beautiful summary of all that we do with the kids and all that we learned about loving ourselves using our natural creativity. The Arts & Dreams book will give children practical tools and ideas for creative activities that will help them to love and believe in themselves. It will inspire them to live fun, successful lives. It will be a joyful, beautiful and imaginative creation.”

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J.K. Rowling will publish a hardcover Hogwarts Library Box Set with Bloomsbury later this year. The publisher mentioned the boxed set in its financial results for the year, an extra bonus for Harry Potter fans. 

The publisher shared these photos on Twitter: “THE HOGWARTS LIBRARY BOXED SET will contain beautiful hardback editions of the 3 Harry Potter school books!”

As you can see by the picture, the set will include Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them and Quidditch Through the Ages (both published as a set in 2001). The set will also include a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a book first published in 2007.

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