This week’s blog roundup is a bit different. There’s a wide variety of interests represented so you can take your pick from the latest author to flee big publishing dishing the dirt, a hands-on review of a new Sony ereader, a look at InDesign’s epub files, inspiration for writers and an interview with the head of a new editorial services company. Enjoy!

Douglas Rushkoff on Arthur
Why I Left My Publisher in Order to Publish a Book
“The model is simple: work the concept with John, write the book, print and digitize it, and then sell it. No distribution, no marketing. . . No middlemen, no markups, no returns.”

Mike Cane on Mike Cane’s XBlog
Nano Fondle: Sony Reader Pocket Touch
“The Sony Pocket Touch is really making me re-evaluate my decision to buy a Kindle. I never expected this to happen. None of the videos I saw on YouTube excited me like touching it, holding it, reading from it did.”

Liz Castro on Pigs, Gourds, and Wikis
Why I Crack Open InDesign EPUBs
“InDesign’s EPUB generation is pretty good: it generates all the persnickety XML files and exports a fair bit of the design from your original document. But it could do so much more.”

George Angus on Tumblemoose
What To Write When The Writing Won’t Come
“I’ve certainly faced my share of lonely cursors, blinking away in a field of white. It’s taken me a bit to figure out how to get around this problem and over the years I’ve developed a few techniques that have really helped. Hopefully, they’ll be of help to you as well.”

Henry Baum on Self-Publishing Review
The New Wordsmiths: An Interview with Book Editor Kurt Gutjahr
“I really see publishing in a similar state as Indie Music was in the 80s. Lots of authors with quality work are not being accepted by the big six, . . . quality and innovation are going to the wayside. Indie Lit is an attempt to capture quality and innovation and revitalize and democratize the process.”

And for Something Completely Different . . .

David K. Israel on Mental_Floss
8 Wacky World Records
“If you’re like me, when you think of world records you think of that weird guy in the Guinness Book ca. 1980 with the really really long fingernails that curled around and around. Those sort of odd records continue to intrigue me so I came up with a list of 8 that are equally, if not slightly more wacky.”

The iPhone photo above was taken at a local Starbucks, where this phrase is on the door. It inspired my post about the commercialization of our emotional lives, Fish Story.