The hand problems continue so, rather than maintain radio silence, I’m going to just do some quickies as I have a chance to read them.

• As I’ve felt a bit put upon recently with all the personal problems I’ve been having, I found this post from Steven Pressfield to be particularly relevant in terms of inspiration in business and writing. I recommend it for anyone, really: Do It Anyway
• While local, I think this NC battle with Amazon is a sign of things to come for everyone who sells and buys online soon: Amazon.com, online customers, win court ruling in N.C. tax fight
• Speaking of Amazon, they surprisingly donated a $25,000 grant to The Office of Letters and Light which are the people behind NaNoWriMo. Their POD arm, CreateSpace already has a partnership with the non-profit so I was really excited to see the mothership donate so much cash! 
• Blog Utopia has a new look! Fancy! Randy writes about Buy.com opening up a Marketplace for small sellers. I’m glad that Randy is doing so well over in his role at Buy but, as a seller, this news seems pretty pointless. Walmart has a marketplace now as do many other stores and, so far, I can’t help but feel like Buy joining in doesn’t change anything. I still don’t see what any of these marketplaces can do for me as a seller that I’m not already getting on the existing platforms.
• Lulu finally adds a Markdown Manager: This is great news for Lulu creators but I can’t help but find it a little funny that something that was listed as a “priority release” back in 2003 only just rolled out 7 years later. But, if you have a Lulu storefront, this could be a great marketing tool. 
• eBay Launches “Instant Sale”: Trade in used electronics for cash. I like this idea in a lot of ways, though I feel like the shipping will be a big deterrent unless you are trading in tons of stuff at once. But recycling electronics is stupidly hard and I like to see someone making it easier.