More than 600,000 readers have pondered the screenshot embedded above, illustrating how an informal definition of the word “literally” has spread to Google. “We did it guys, we finally killed English,” wrote the person who shared the photo.

If you Google the phrase “define literally,” the dictionary listing now includes this secondary definition: “Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling.”

You can read other dictionary definitions at this link. For years, passionate grammar defenders have railed against this common and informal use of the word “literally.” Some people use the word to provide exaggerated emphasis for a statement: “I love Raymond Chandler so much I literally read The Long Goodbye one hundred times.”

Novelist Leighann Dobbs took three spots on our Self-Published Bestsellers List this week with her cozy mystery, 3 Bodies and a Biscotti.

To help GalleyCat readers discover self-published authors, we compile weekly lists of the top eBooks in four major marketplaces for self-published digital books: Amazon, B&N, Apple iBookstore and Smashwords. You can read all the lists below, complete with links to each book.

If you want more resources as an author, try our Free Sites to Promote Your eBook post, How To Sell Your Self-Published Book in Bookstores post and our How to Pitch Your Book to Online Outlets post.

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Fans of Charles Bukowski can listen to audiobook editions of his work for the first time ever. HarperCollins plans to release eight audiobooks for the late writer’s 93rd birthday. The digital audiobooks will be available on August 13th.

The books include: Post Office, South of No North, Factotum, Women, Ham on Rye, Hot Water Music, Hollywood, and Pulp. Actor and audiobook narrator Christian Baskous  will read the books.  Ecco publisher Daniel Halpern had this comment:

It would be Bukowski himself reading here, if the technology had advanced quickly enough.  But his voice rings clear and deep in these renditions – and from them, the genius of Bukowski flows forth.

(Image via)

How do you balance your creative life and your family life? An unexpected video game will help players around the world confront that problem.

We’ve embedded the trailer for The Novelist below–what do you think? Developer Kent Hudson spent over ten years working on major video game releases like Deus Ex: Invisible War and BioShock 2, but felt “creatively restless.” Nearly two years ago, he left work and started an indie video game. Here’s more about the game:

The desire for relatable, universal subject matter led to its focus on a single family. During its development, the concept began to hit closer and closer to home; as months passed and the challenges of independent development made themselves known, Kent faced scenarios eerily similar to those he was creating in the game. Can a person follow their dreams while remaining connected to those they love?

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You only have a few more hours to submit the first 500 words of your suspense manuscript to the Friedrich Literary Agency’s Vivid Voices Contest.

The three prizes include: a full manuscript evaluation by agent Lucy Carson, a query evaluation and free book, or a query evaluation. To submit, email your materials to vividvoicescontest (at) gmail (dot) com before 5 p.m. EST today (August 12). Here’s more about the contest:

an entry consists of the first 500 words of your novel (yes, we are asking for fiction only) OR short story (if and only if that story is part of a suspense-themed collection which is complete), along with your full name, working title of the submission, and confirmation that the project is not under consideration at another agency at this time … After your first 500 words, please include 2-3 paragraphs describing the complete project.

Chooseco, the official publisher of Choose Your Own Adventure books, hopes to raise $130,000 on Kickstarter to finance a new cartoon app.

CEO R.A. Montgomery and publisher Shannon Gilligan launched the campaign for “Choose Toons,” a project that would adapt Choose Your Own Adventure books for 5 to 7 year old readers in a new format. Here’s more about the project:

Our first episode is based on the title Your Very Own Robot, where YOU put together a robot named Gus out of discarded parts from your parents’ robot lab. Gus gets you into a lot of trouble. This first episode has 20 story branches with11 possible endings, with more than 30 minutes total of animation … $130,000 will fully fund one 32-minute app in what we plan to eventually develop into a series of cartoons. This amount funds the animation, voice acting, and programming of the choice points within the app. The script is already complete. We developed the demo seen in our video ourselves and our Vermont-based team has experience writing scripts, working on film projects, and developing software.

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AMC released an unusual trailer for the final episodes of Breaking Bad, as star Bryan Cranston read “Ozymandias” by the great poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley.

We’ve embedded the video above–what do you think? If you want to explore more Shelley poetry and essays before the final episodes begin this weekend, we’ve collected a long list of free books by the author. Open Culture has more about the poem:

It seems perfectly in character, then, that the show’s producers would tease the final season with the ominous and dusty clip above, with Cranston reading Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandias,” a poem about the hubris of another desert tyrant—well-known for his megalomaniacal folly—Ramesses II (also known by a transliteration of his throne name, Ozymandias).

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How do you map out ideas before starting a story?

One reader asked Community creator Dan Harmon to explain his personal process of “story-breaking,” or how he brainstorms his way into a script. Harmon’s long and idiosyncratic explanation of his creative process might help you chart out your next story, novel or script. Check it out:

Start with random IDEAS.  Ideas can be anything – Poop is an idea, America, pickles, the number six, a raccoon, anything. Some ideas will reveal related ideas, i.e. you may think, upon thinking about raccoons, that you have more than one thought about raccoons.  Clouds of related ideas that your mind recognizes as related in any way are potential story AREAS.  Look for areas that make you laugh and cry. Draw a circle to symbolize your area, because your story will take the “reader” through related ideas in a path around a central idea.

(Link via; photo via)

A reddit user and librarian posted an epic chart recently, mapping the life cycle of a library book.

You can follow a popular or unpopular book through the map of what happens inside this particular library system. It gives readers a glimpse into both the past, present and future of your favorite book. When was the last time you checked out your favorite library book? Check it out:

Stage four (a) “Social Butterfly”: Not being on display all the time hasn’t stopped this book from being a hit. Being kept on hold for months at a time, being checked out like no other, this book is always out of the library. It interacts with new people, tells them a story, and lets them jump into a new world, without leaving the comfort of their recliner.

Stage five (a) “Tired out”: After being out for so long, being around so many people, and being taken everywhere, the book is tired and in need of some rest and relaxation. The binding is a little worn, the edges of the cover hurt, and it looks like a little kid may have even taken a crayon to one of the pages. Luckily, there are people who know how to fix this and the book is taken out of circulation and mended.

 

I spend most of my day writing on this blog or writing emails to sources, but I only manage to send a few print letters every year. During my vacation later this month, I will test drive a stack of Moleskine’s Postal Notebooks in an attempt to reverse this bad writing habit.

Earlier this week, Michele Filgate wondered “Will social media kill writers’ diaries?”

I think letter-writing is a casualty of that same impulse. We spend so much time reading and writing fractured pieces of our experience that we forget to tell our story in the broad strokes of a diary or letter.

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