So the premier desktop publishing package Adobe Indesign has just released a Kindle plugin - convert your InDesign projects directly into Kindle books. It already handles EPUB format and PDF (obviously), making InDesign probably the path of least resistance for authors wanting to self-pub their own well-formatted books. (Yes, you can do it with Microsoft Word, but you shouldn't. It's like roasting a turkey by setting fire to a nearby elephant - there's a lot of unnecessary work, and you can't help but make a mess.) For $700 (InDesign only; the complete CS5 package is rather more than that), it's not a bad investment for authors looking at self-pubbing seriously, and the classes to learn the basics of using it are generally only a few hundred more (not to mention online tutorials).

Since I'm talking about self-pubbing again, the now-almost-obligatory J. A. Konrath post, where Konrath refutes the classic "Yeah, but you aren't J. A. Konrath" argument for why he's a freak example, and nobody else can make a living self-pubbing. The statistics do make one pause for thought, at least.

In the 'Other News', George Lucas has decided he hasn't fiddled with Star Wars enough - now it needs to be in 3D. Everybody ready? One, two, three - groan. George, I'm sure somewhere in the universe, there are times when it's a good idea for someone to revisit their opus, but it's not you, and it's not now, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Leave it alone already and work on some new things. It's not that I care what you do to new versions of Star Wars, it's just that you need to move on.

And for laughs, Robert Jackson Bennet on Orbit books posts a great tongue-in-cheek look at author workspaces.