As you finish your National Novel Writing Month manuscript this week, there is one very very very important thing to remember: You need to edit your work before you even consider publishing it.

To get the editing started, you should join a novel swap. On the NaNoWriMo forums, writers around the world will swap novels for critiques, fresh ideas and support.

Here’s more: “Think of this forum like a dating site for novels and readers. You’ve got a novel and you want some feedback, so this is the place to put up a personal ad to find someone who’d like give it a test drive. You may also want to read some other novels and give feedback. There is no obligation to share your novel if you’re just here giving feedback. Please limit your posting of your work to 5 pages or 1,500 words, whichever is less.”

Read more

This week, Random House is looking for a senior editor, while HarperCollins is on the hunt for a rights coordinator. Tor Books is seeking a marketing manager, and Skyhorse Publishing is in need of a new associate publicist to join its team. Get the details on these gigs and more, and find additional just-posted publishing openings on mediabistro.com.

• Senior Editor Random House (New York, NY)
• Rights Coordinator HarperCollins (New York, NY)
• Marketing Manager Tor Books (New York, NY)
• Associate Publicist Skyhorse Publishing (New York, NY)
• Marketing/Sales Coordinator World Scientific Publishing Co (Hackensack, NJ)

For more job listings, go to the Mediabistro job board, and to post a job, visit our employer page. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

Reader Views, a company dedicated to reviewing books and author publicity, has been banned from posting their reviews on Amazon.

According to an email from the company’s founder Irene Watson yesterday, Amazon has banned reviews from 15 sites. Watson explained in the email: “At first it seems it was just review sites like us but then it flowed over to removing reviews from individual reviews unrelated to any site or blog. There is no consistency except a stock email that says ‘you violated the guidelines’ but the specific violation is never disclosed by Amazon.com.”

Unlike a traditional media review, Reader Views, gets paid for some of its reviews through selling publicity services to authors. Their website explains: “We give free reviews but due to the overwhelming amount of submissions and high costs of processing we are limiting the number of free reviews we will give each week. There is no guarantee your book will be reviewed because the reviewers choose what books they want to read. For a guaranteed review we suggest one of our budget friendly Publicity Packages.” Read more

Bestselling author Seth Godin has decided to end the Domino Project, his experimental imprint with Amazon. The books will still be sold on Amazon, but Sarah Kay‘s poetry book B will be the last book published by the imprint.

Last August, Godin made a surprise announcement: “I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way.” He then launched the Domino Project through Amazon, publishing 12 books. The list included Do the Work: Overcome Resistance and Get Out of Your Own Way by  Steven Pressfield. General Electric sponsored a free download of that “sponsored book.”

Godin explained why he is stopping in a blog post: “By most of the measures I set out at the beginning, the project has been a success. So why stop? Mostly because it was a project, not a lifelong commitment to being a publisher of books. Projects are fun to start, but part of the deal is that they don’t last forever. The goal was to explore what could be done in a fast-changing environment.” (Via Publishers Lunch)

Read more

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury‘s classic science fiction novel about book burning and censorship, has just been released as an eBook. Simon & Schuster has released the eBook today in advance of a new paperback edition that comes out this fall.

eBookNewser has more: “Simon & Schuster’s Jonathan Karp [called it]  ‘a rare and wonderful opportunity to continue our relationship with this beloved and canonical author and to bring his works to new a generation of readers and in new formats.’”

This comes as a surprise, since the 91-year old author has dismissed eBooks and eReaders in the past. The Associated Press explained: “Bradbury himself has been an emphatic defender of traditional paper texts, saying that e-books ‘smell like burned fuel’ and calling the Internet nothing but ‘a big distraction.’”

For years, readers have debated the origins of the mysterious Voynich Manuscript, an undated book written in an unknown language.

At the Yale University Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library’s online site, you can now read the entire book. Follow this link to explore the strange and beautiful book.

Here’s more from the library: “Written in Central Europe at the end of the 15th or during the 16th century, the origin, language, and date of the Voynich Manuscript—named after the Polish-American antiquarian bookseller, Wilfrid M. Voynich, who acquired it in 1912—are still being debated as vigorously as its puzzling drawings and undeciphered text. Described as a magical or scientific text, nearly every page contains botanical, figurative, and scientific drawings of a provincial but lively character, drawn in ink with vibrant washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue, and red.” (Via BoingBoing)

We’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending November 27, 2011–a sneak peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month.

(Debuted at #10 in Children’s Interest) The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler: “It’s 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They’ve been best friends almost as long – at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh’s family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they’re automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn’t been invented yet. And they’re looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.” (November 2011)

(Debuted at #11 in Children’s Illustrated) Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Jane Chapman: “Bear’s friends are determined to keep Bear awake for Christmas! So they wake Bear up and have him help them find a Christmas tree, bake cakes, hang up stockings, and sing Christmas songs. Bear stays up–by discovering that giving is one of the best Christmas presents!” (October 2008)

Read more

The online version of the Occupy Wall Street Poetry Anthology has just added one hundred new pages as poems arrive from all over the world.

Follow this link to download a free online copy of the 538-page anthology. If you want to add your work to the anthology, the OWS Library has issued a writing prompt for the week–a good way to join the community writing project.

Here is the writing prompt: “Watch OWS videos on youtube that show police brutality. Spend a half hour in silent reflection. As you reflect, calmly send radiant energy to people the world over that have been victims of police brutality. Then write a poem to a police officer! Dedicate poems to Robert Hass or anyone you know that has been a victim of police brutality.”

Janna Morishima has been named marketing director at the comic book publishing company, Papercutz.

Morishima served as one of the founding editor of Scholastic’s graphic novel division, Graphix. At Graphix, she worked on several successful projects including Jeff Smith‘s Bone series and an adaptation of Ann Martin‘s The Babysitters Club series.

Publisher Terry Nantier had this statement in the release: ”We’re very excited to welcome Janna to our team as Papercutz experiences explosive growth with such licenses as the Smurfs and now Ninjago which has debuted with a 200,000 copy print run. I’ve known her for a few years already and with her combined experience of editing and marketing children’s graphic novels and this, from the very start of this category’s introduction and growth, she will bring an added dimension of knowledge and energy.”

As you near the end of your National Novel Writing Month manuscript, you should check the online Onomatopoeia Dictionary to spice up your climactic car chase, sword fight or dramatic confrontation.

The amazing resource words for sounds has sections on eating & drinking, explosions, music, animals and much, much more. If you need a refresher, watch the Winnie-the-Pooh video embedded above for a definition of onomatopoeia.

Here’s more from the site: “Onomatopoeia (words that imitate sound) is prominent in comics. There is a dictionary of onomatopoeia in comics, entitled: “Ka-boom”, by Kevin J. Taylor, and a website. Much of the onomatopoeia in comics is not used outside the world of comics. Also, some words are used by only one author. Although this website does feature a few words from comics, it gravitates towards words found in other literature.”

Read more