For your weekend reading pleasure, here are our top stories of the week, including the definition of New Adult fiction, the best writing music of the year and a new Game of Thrones trailer (embedded above).

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1. 50 Free Books To Be Thankful For

2. Simon & Schuster Opens Self-Publishing Service

3. Best Writing Music of 2012

4. The Lost History of Fifty Shades of Grey

5. Game of Thrones Season 3 Trailer Released

6. Free Sites to Promote Your eBook

7. Bookstore Installs Random Book Dispenser

9. Writer Tops Childhood Dream Job List

10. What Is New Adult Fiction?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Every aspiring writer needs to make a list of literary agents they would like to pitch. If you are looking for an agent, there are five simple steps that everybody should follow (whether you are a small town writer or a business leader with a great story or a GalleyCat editor).

We’ve collected five foolproof methods for finding the best agent to pitch with your book–any suggestions to add?

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As part of the award, James will get a cover story and interview in the magazine. She joins a list of winners that includes David Shanks, Larry Kirshbaum, Jeff Bezos and Len Riggio.

Co-editorial director Jim Milliot explained the choice: “From boosting sales of print books through bookstores to putting a spotlight on a genre that had received little publicity, E.L. James’ impact on various parts of the book business cannot be overstated … She is well deserving of our Person of the Year award.”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

AppNewser has some new statistics about the publishing experiment.

For the last seven days, BitTorrent members had exclusive access to excerpts, unpublished writing and multimedia materials related to the book. Today, BitTorrent revealed some impressive statistics: “The Tim Ferriss 4-Hour Chef Bundle has now been downloaded 211,000 times. From BitTorrent, 85,000 visitors clicked to check out the book in the Amazon store, a huge number for the category.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

To promote her new memoir, author and journalist Stephanie LaCava worked with filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to make her book trailer.

Joost directed the indie hit Catfish, and turned “An Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris trailer into a candle-lit mix of animation, video and spooky narration.

We’ve embedded the video above–what do you think?

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Follow this link to submit, entries must be received by December 3rd.  Science fiction authors Ian Macleod and James P. Blaylock will judge the contest. The winner will get a £250 cash prize and their design will be featured in a window blind.

Here’s more about the contest: “Do you dream of the days when airships ruled the skies, gentlemen duelled with steam-assisted rayguns, and a waxed moustache was considered the very apex of fashion? Then Direct Blinds wants to hear from you. Steampunk is the theme – so whether it’s a smoggy cityscape, a clockwork contraption, a dirigible battle or something altogether more fanciful, we want to see what you can do … Entries will be judged by acclaimed science fiction authors , who will select 20 of the best to be displayed in an online gallery. It’s then opened up to a public vote to decide the overall winner.”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Today’s guest on the Morning Media Menu was Valla Vakili, CEO of Small Demons. His company is building an online literary database that collects and catalogs thousands of references to music, movies, people and objects mentioned inside of books.

Press play below to listen to the interview on SoundCloud. Vakili explained how writers and readers can build book collections using the new Storyboard feature, bringing together books on digital shelves. He offered this advice for writers:

One of the things that I always want to know as a reader (and I think other readers feel the same way) is we love to know the inspiration behind things. Collections is one way of doing that, of saying “here are all the places that influenced this book.” There are authors who frequently say when they are coming up with characters, they associate them with some kind of music. Basically, being able to give a peek into the creative process and how it relates back to the influences behind a character, storyline, or series. We think collections can be a really great way to do that, as well as show off the things that interest them within the world of books.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Here are some handpicked titles from our New Books section. Want to include your book? Just read our Facebook Your New or Upcoming Book post. Don’t forget to include your title’s exact release date and a link.

Burned Bridges by Marguerite Ashton: “Newly sober and dating the man of her dreams, Traci Collins is ready to enjoy the good life, until her new best friend, Olivia Durning, confides a dreadful secret far worse than Traci could imagine. ” (October 2012)

Another Man’s Treasure by S.W. Hubbard: ”On a snowy Christmas Eve, a beautiful young mother goes out to buy a few last minute gifts and never returns…thirty years later, her daughter picks up her trail.” (October 2012)

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Congratulations to all the National Novel Writing Month writers in the GalleyCat audience for surviving another year with the writing marathon. Romance writers can even consider submitting your NaNoWriMo novel to Avon Impulse. But don’t forget–you still need to edit!

In 90 days, you should take the National Novel Editing Month challenge and clean up your masterpiece. Follow this link to explore our growing collection of editing tools as well.

Here’s more about NaNoEdMO: “Have you written a 50,000 word novel but haven’t edited it yet? Then you’ve come to the right place! It is here that people from all over the world gather together to spend 50 hours in March editing their novels. This is not as easy as it might sound but the forums are available to get advice and ask all the important questions you may have. Advice from real published authors will also be here to help you and a certificate of completion awaits each winner at the end of the month.”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Everybody should visit Hatch’s Plot Bank to fill your literary checkbook. This collection of thousands of ideas for writers could help you jump-start a scene or wrap up your NaNoWriMo novel. Check it out:

This site is designed to help novel, short story, movie, television, play, and video game writers develop new plot ideas. Over 2000 scenarios ranging from the normal to the bizarre are provided as a spark for the imagination. Some plots are sitcom cliches (that might deserve a new twist) while others are unusual happenings gleaned from the world of news and a few odd minds. Other story ideas are subtle suggestions that could be taken several ways – according to your mood or whim at the moment. Some others are everyday situations given an interesting wrinkle. Take a look for yourself.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Does the universe have a purpose? Physicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson responded to that cosmic question in the video embedded above–do you agree with his answer?

Last year, Tyson answered another question that matters to all Galleycat readers: “Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on the planet?” The famous physicist and author responded with a concise list of classic books. Follow the links below to download free ePub, Kindle or text versions of the books.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Writing HBO AMERICAN GODS pilot with @tordotcom AMERICAN GODS playlist playing to keep me company. j.mp/SeMHHC

— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) November 28, 2012

On Twitter, Neil Gaiman shared the fact that he is currently writing an American Gods pilot for HBO. We’ve embedded the tweet above.

Click here to read the first five chapters of the award-winning novel, “a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth.” The news of the possible adaptation emerged last year.

If you want to listen to the American Gods playlist on Spotify, follow this link. We’ve embedded the songlist below, a great collection of writing music.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

While other events focus entirely on one aspect of social media or the media app ecosystem, our events explore the full spectrum of technical and business opportunities both within and beyond the realm of publishing, media, and the mobile-first world.

Prices increase onsite, so hurry and purchase your pass before Monday, December 3.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Follow these individual imprint links to submit your manuscript: Loveswept (romance & women’s fiction), Alibi (mystery & suspense), Hydra (sci-fi, fantasy & horror), Flirt (new adult). There is no official word count, but the editors are looking for both shorter submissions that range between 15,000 and 30,000 words and longer works that range between 40,000 and 60,000 words. Here’s more from the publisher:

You may present any manuscript in which you control exclusive copyright.  We are open to previously-published manuscripts as long as the submitting author now controls all electronic and print publishing rights.  Please submit the entire query form at the link below.  If we are interested in considering your full manuscript, you will be contacted with further submission instructions.  We make every effort to respond to submission inquiries within 2-4 weeks after submission of the submission query form; please do not resubmit previously submitted queries, as this may create delays.

 

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As Peter Jackson‘s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit heads to theaters (and courtrooms), Air New Zealand has unveiled an airplane with an enormous Hobbit-inspired mural.

You can see the plane in action in the video embedded above. Here’s more from AgencySpy:

I’m not sure if you’re aware, but when you account for tourism dollars, the LOTR trilogy basically single-handedly boosted New Zealand’s entire economy. It is because nerds will do anything to live out their silly fantasies, and, yes, maybe New Zealand is kind of a pretty looking place. In any case, New Zealanders (or “Kiwis” as your annoying coworker calls them) see the new trilogy as another influx of tourism dollars for their scenic island nation. Therefore, Air New Zeland is has painted one of its jumbo jets with all the characters your weird friend will soon fall in love with and blow their life-savings trying to get a seat on. This painstakingly painted cash-cows follows a spot from Air New Zealand where flyers are briefed by hobbits under a similarly whimsically flute-heavy soundtrack.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.