As this year’s National Novel Writing Month reaches its conclusion, we wanted to spotlight some advice that you may find helpful right about now.

“You’re not really done,” observes Justine Larbalestier. “Not even if you managed to finish a whole novel in one month.” (“Though if you did,” she adds, “congrats!”) Now it’s time to start thinking about rewriting… well, maybe in a week or so, after you’ve had a chance to decompress. It’s important to remember that you’re the one who sets the agenda here, not the book. Or, as Maureen Johnson puts it, “the book is your b%^#h.” (Well, she’s writing for an all-ages readership, after all.) That applies to NaNoWriMo, too, she adds—so you didn’t finish your draft tonight? So what? The important thing is you made a conscious decision to start writing, and you wrote, and you can keep writing. “Don’t use the fact that you are currently a little bit behind as an excuse to stop,” Johnson exhorts. “This is your opportunity to finish a book. So finish a book!”

Librarian, Maria Medrano-Nehls never knew her life would turn out this way. She had been through many challenges in her life before but had always kept a positive attitude. But lately, it has taken every ounce of faith and the prayers of friends and family to keep her head up. Her husband, Fred Nehls needs a liver transplant and she is calling upon her fellow book lovers for help.

It hasn’t been easy for Maria to not let her family know how much it tears her up inside but she believes in faith and that somehow miracles still do happen.

If you would like to know more about what you can do to help, visit her blog:

http://fredstransplant.blogspot.com/2009/11/update-on-fred-nehls-condition-and-new.html

More than fifty copies of Barnes & Noble’s Nook digital reader have surfaced on eBay recently. As of this writing, the cheapest bid rests at $101.01 and the most expensive bid stands at $575.00–$316 more than the list price of $259.

In an email exchange with GalleyCat, Barnes & Noble spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating declined to comment on the eBay listings. She did note that “demo devices are scheduled to be available in our highest volume stores the week of 12/7. Those highest volume stores are also expected to receive very limited inventory at a date yet to be determined.”

However, the company’s list of “highest volume stores” has not been revealed yet. Last night, eBook blogger Mike Cane spotted the device selling for $465 on eBay–$206 more than the list price.

As Internet users flocked to Amazon.com (AMZN) on Cyber Monday (the web-based alternative to Black Friday shopping), the stock price at the online bookseller has jumped dramatically.

UPDATE: As of 4 p.m., the stock price sat at $135.91. According to CNN Money, the stock hit a record high today: “One of the most-notable gainers was Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), which climbed as much as $3.51 a share to an all-time high of $135.25 on belief that the online retailer will benefit from strong weekend holiday-shopping sales.”

In addition, an Amazon spokesperson Cinthia Portugal told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “For every 100 books we sell in physical, we sell 48 Kindle books”–one of the first concrete figures that Amazon has revealed about the sales of the device. (Via Sarah Weinman)

In his Sunday Doonesbury comic, cartoonist Garry Trudeau (pictured) satirized the Twitter book deals (and referenced his own Twitter satire book) that have inspired both fascination and irritation in the publishing world.

In the strip, fictional Fox News anchor Roland Hedley explores his first independent bookstore, telling the crowd at his reading: “I thought I’d read you a few tweets from my latest collection, ‘My Shorts R Bunching. Thoughts?‘” A series of inane thoughts, terrible syntax, and a Sarah Palin joke follow…

If you need some context on the whole Twitter book deal phenomenon, follow these links for to catch up on the trend. (Link via Random House) Update: A previous version of this post incorrectly spelled Trudeau’s name.

Quirk Books will bring a 30-second version of the “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” book trailer (embedded above) to televisions and multiplexes around the country–picking one theater in a number of carefully selected cities to test the trailer on the big screen.

Through Dec. 25, the trailer will screen at one theater in each of these cities: Berkeley, CA; Mountain View, CA; Cambridge, MA; Washington, DC; King of Prussia, PA, and New York, NY will see the 30-second trailer before every movie playing until Dec. 25th. In addition, the company is running the ad on Dish Network and DIRECTV channels that include: ABC Family, BBC America, Biography, Discovery Health, E!, Lifetime, Lifetime Movie Network, Ion, Oxygen, SoapNet, Style, and We.

What do you think? Are book trailers ready for prime time? Quirk publisher David Borgenicht had this statement: “The audience for ‘Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters’ is the same crowd that goes to see the Twilight movies and watches television programs like Dr. Who, The Ghost Whisper, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We’ve already had tremendous print and online coverage for the book. And since we had this great book video on our hands, it seemed natural to get it in front of movie-goers and TV viewers.”

Two years ago, Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite published a book called Deadly Viper: Character Assassins, “a kung fu inspired book on leadership integrity” that did well enough to attract the attention of Zondervan (the Christian publishing arm of HarperCollins), which released a new edition last month along with a new study guide. But the efforts to raise the book’s profile and engage a larger audience also brought it to the attention of Asian-American evangelicals like Eugene Cho—and though he acknowledged the good intentions of Foster and Wilhite (describing them as “brothers in Christ”), he also observed that the ersatz Asian imagery throughout the book was offensive because it perpetuates stereotypes and caricatures.”

“The reality is that we’re all prone to judging books by its cover,” Cho continued,” and the reality is there are folks who are judging Asians by the cover and we’re tired of fighting these stereotypes and caricatures.” A few days later, Cho and others voiced their concerns directly to the authors and publisher, and commented that “our correspondence with Mike and Jud… only re-affirmed the positive feelings I have had of them and their ministry.” As a result of that dialogue, Zondervan agreed to recall Deadly Vipers, with CEO Moe Girkins apologizing for the offense the book caused while expressing “love and support” for Foster and Wilhite and encouraging them to rework the material into “a better presentation.”

Today, the Deadly Vipers website has been rebranded as the home of “People of the Second Chance.” “In the past few weeks of learning, loss, tears, and experiencing a significant valley in our lives,” Foster and Wilhite write, “we are more certain than ever that God does his best work in brokenness… We have this simple belief that deep inside of all us we are desperately wanting grace, forgiveness, second chances and a fresh start.”

As real wars boil around the world, NPR producer and contributor Charlie Schroeder will write about the people obsessed with old wars–re-enacting 15 different historical wars alongside hobbyists in a new book.

Schroeder just sold “Re-Enactor: Learning About History One Bloodless Battle at a Time,” to Meghan Stevenson at Hudson Street Press/Plume. The deal was negotiated by Jonathan Lyons at Lyons Literary. Schroeder has produced countless shows for NPR, including pieces about getting into shape and not washing his hair.

Here’s more about the book: “in which an everyday guy humorously attempts to learn what he missed in history class by participating in fifteen different war re-enactments, from the Greeks to Vietnam, alongside the passionate hobbyists who live to recreate the past.”

For at least a year now, we’ve been hearing complaints about Stephenie Meyer‘s Twilight series and how creepy the relationship between Bella and Edward is—keeping in mind that while Edward looks like a teenager, as a vampire he’s old enough to be Bella’s grandfather. Then we saw a post at science-fiction blog io9 over the weekend, positing that their grand romance, especially as it’s depicted in New Moon, has all the signs of an abusive relationship. Well, fifteen of them anyway, from “Does your partner control what you do, who you see or talk to or where you go?” to “Does your partner accuse you of cheating or is often jealous of your outside relationships?”

The conversation at io9 (which is where we got the movie image), sparked by the original LiveJournal post, is lively. As one commenter interprets things: “Writing a novel about a moody, exotic, pretty, totally awesome vampire guy who is inexplicably obsessed with some random, average high school girl is practically a licence to print money. But, surprise, it also accurately reflects that the kind of relationship that would develop from her desperation: being taken advantage of by a moody, exotic, pretty, totally awesome abuser.” Other people say it’s just a bunch of books (and movies) for teens, or it’s our modern Romeo & Juliet, so back off. But what do you think?

A few minutes ago, the literary journal Electric Literature launched a “microserialization” experiment by publishing a new story by Rick Moody on Twitter.

Entitled “Some Contemporary Characters,” Moody (pictured, via) wrote the story with the limits and form of Twitter in mind. The editors noted that the individual tweets were “each clearly labored over with a precision and lyricism that floored us.” Moody, the author of “Demonology” and “The Ice Storm,” added: “It really was like writing Haiku.” Full disclosure: The founders of Electric Literature are speaking at mediabistro.com’s eBook Summit.

The story will be serialized between today and Dec. 2nd; the story began with this tweet: “There are things in this taxable and careworn world that can only be said in a restrictive interface with a minimum of characters:”