On Wednesday, The New York Times announced that they will now be including e-books in their famous best-seller rankings.

Janet Elder, the editor of news surveys and election analysis for The Times, said the newspaper had spent two years creating a system that tracks and verifies e-book sales.

“We’ve had our eye on e-book sales since e-books began,” Ms. Elder said. “It was clear that e-books were taking a greater and greater share of total sales, and we wanted to be able to tell our readers which titles were selling and how they fit together with print sales.”

Word around the campfire is that director Baz Luhrmann has been toying with the idea of directing a new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. In an insightful article in The Atlantic, writer and editor Adam Eaglin examines the novel and its previous failed adaptations, offering literary advice to Luhrmann.

But as beloved as the book is, the films have been mostly panned. Past adaptations watered down Fitzgerald’s narrative. They missed the book’s themes. Or they simply got basic details wrong.

November is “Agent Guest Column Month” at Guide to Literary Agents, a helpful blog that offers tips and advice on query letters, the agent search, and the literary business in general.

In what many young writers would agree to be a very controversial article, critic Laura Miller discusses her disappointment in the NaNoWriMo phenomenon. Although it may rub many writers the wrong way, she does prevail with an inspiring call for readers.

Rather than squandering our applause on writers — who, let’s face it, will keep on pounding the keyboards whether we support them or not — why not direct more attention, more pep talks, more nonprofit booster groups, more benefit galas and more huzzahs to readers? Why not celebrate them more heartily? They are the bedrock on which any literary culture must be built. After all, there’s not much glory in finally writing that novel if it turns out there’s no one left to read it.

Black Lawrence Press is now accepting submissions for the annual Big Moose Prize.

Each year Black Lawrence Press will award The Big Moose Prize for an unpublished novel. The prize is open to new, emerging, and established writers. The winner of this contest will receive book publication, a $1,000 cash award, and ten copies of the book. Prizes will be awarded on publication.

Other upcoming contests, all without entry fees:
The Student Writing Contest at The Atlantic
College Poetry Contest at The Lyric
The Foundation Fund at Friends of American Writers
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards