Matthew Owen has won the  Fahrenheit 451 cover design contest from Simon & Schuster and the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

The winning cover (embedded above) was revealed at the ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Owen, who hails from Little Rock, AR, created a cover that beat out more than 360 submissions. Both the Simon & Schuster staff and the Bradbury estate participated in judging the entries.

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For the sixth year in a row, the Writers Guild of America, West and the Writers Guild of America, East will celebrate video game writing at their annual awards ceremony.

Below, we’ve listed to all the nominees in the Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing category. You can follow the links below to explore gameplay videos on YouTube–a chance to watch the games unfold in a series of fan-made videos.

The winners will all be revealed on February 19, 2013 at a Los Angeles ceremony. You can also follow the links below to watch the Guild’s nominees for the best web video writing, another new frontier for writers.

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After wrapping his work on the final book of Robert Jordan‘s Wheel of Time series, fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson will let his fans watch him write a chapter of his new book online.

Using the Camtasia screen recording software, the novelist has begun to videotape his entire writing process for a chapter, starting with his initial notes (video embedded above). Would you do this for your readers?

Here is more about the process: “New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson writes a chapter from the sequel to The Way of Kings, to be published in late 2013 (hopefully) or early 2014. This is the real-time version. After all of the videos have been uploaded we’ll make a high-speed version of the chapter.” (Link via)

A nonfiction book has finally cracked our Self Published Bestsellers List, as Guy Kawasaki joined the Amazon rankings with his APE handbook for writers.

To help GalleyCat readers discover self-published authors, we have compiled lists of the top eBooks in three major marketplaces for self-published digital books: Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.

We update these lists every week, tracking how writers perform inside these booming marketplaces. You can read all the lists below, complete with links to each book. If you are an author, check out our Free Sites to Promote Your eBook post and our 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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Anybody who thinks literary criticism is dead should read this: the digital review copy community at NetGalley now has more than 100,000 members. 

AppNewser has more about the company’s growth:

Firebrand Technologies, the company that owns the digital galley site NetGalley, announced today that NetGalley now has more than 100,000 members reading its digital books. The company redesigned the site last fall, giving it a new look, making it easier to read on Kindle devices and adding more user tools. In addition to the growth, Firebrand has also announced four new hires…

Here are some literary events to jump-start your week. To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.

Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio and chef Eddie Huang will come together for a conversation event to discuss Huang’s new memoir, Fresh Off the Boat. Hear them on Tuesday, January 29th at Barnes & Noble starting at 7 p.m. (New York, NY)

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Over at the online learning site Coursera, you can take college-level writing and literature courses for free, studying alongside thousands of other students.

Below, we’ve linked to nine literary Coursera offerings, classes ranging from science fiction to writing to mythology. Here’s more about the site:

We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions … Classes offered on Coursera are designed to help you master the material. When you take one of our classes, you will watch lectures taught by world-class professors, learn at your own pace, test your knowledge, and reinforce concepts through interactive exercises. When you join one of our classes, you’ll also join a global community of thousands of students learning alongside you.

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A new infographic about library technology highlighted a sad fact: 76 percent of libraries do not have enough computers to meet public needs.

AppNewser has all the details: ”OpenSite.org has created an infographic called, “The Future of Libraries,” which imagines what libraries will look like in the future. According to the graphic, there are more than 121,000 libraries in America and 69 percent of Americans use libraries. In addition, the infographic reveals that 67 percent of libraries offer eBooks and 28 percent lend eReading devices.”

Have you ever paid for an online ad or sponsored post to promote your book? One author found success by personally writing to every single reader who responded to his sponsored post.

Self-published author H.A. Goodman took out a sponsored ad on Reddit for a 99-cent sale on his fantasy eBook. Instead of ignoring reader comments, Goodman logged into Reddit and answered every single comment with a personal message–creating a massive 61-comment thread for the sponsored post.

Check it out: “pricing the ebook at 99¢ has helped with sales tremendously. I have a paperback that’s around ten bucks, but I only care about my ebook sales in this day and age, since Amazon has taken enormous control of the the literary industry. I also have a nook and iTunes version, but I really only concern myself with the Kindle sales, which have been doing well – in large part due to my Reddit ad and to this amazing Reddit community. The literary industry is changing rapidly, and every year all publishers – from big to small – learn that marketing and sales techniques change exponentially.”

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Running out of space for your writing, photographs, notes and research? Want to back up all your work someplace safe?

Social Times has rounded up the Top 8 Free File Sharing Sites, enough storage to save every bit of digital work you have ever created. Here are some newer offering from the long list:

Mega: Internet outlaw Kim Dotcom released this service one year after the U.S. government shut down its predecessor, MegaUpload, for facilitating copyright infringement. The new tool promises “state of the art, browser-based encryption technology” and a whopping 50 GB of free cloud storage.

SkyDrive: offers 7 GB of free cloud storage for photos, documents, and other files and works on any device. Windows 8 users can log in with their Microsoft accounts to view photos and files, edit and share Office documents, and share the files with friends.