Portland, Ore.

Today is Blumesday. Not the Bloomsday where readers celebrate James Joyce's novel Ulysses — that was Sunday. Today's Blumesday is also a holiday for literature lovers, but of a different sort.

Blumesday creators Joanna Miller and Heather Larimer are writers, and they're pretty well-read. But they were never huge fans of Ulysses. "We sort of self-deprecatingly said, 'Well, the only way we could participate in Bloomsday was if it were Judy Blumesday.' And then the joke turned into, 'Wait, why aren't we doing this?' " Miller explains.

 Reviews on Amazon are becoming attack weapons, intended to sink new books as soon as they are published.

In the biggest, most overt and most successful of these campaigns, a group of Michael Jackson fans used Facebook and Twitter to solicit negative reviews of a new biography of the singer. They bombarded Amazon with dozens of one-star takedowns, succeeded in getting several favorable notices erased and even took credit for Amazon’s briefly removing the book from sale.

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), selected five books as finalists for the 2013 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults, which honors the best nonfiction books written for young adults between Nov. 1, 2011 and Oct. 31, 2012. YALSA will name the 2013 award winner at the Youth Media Awards at 7:45 a.m. on Jan. 28, in Seattle during the American Library Association’s Midwinter Meeting.

Maria Semple made an instant, jarring discovery when she moved with her boyfriend and daughter from Los Angeles to Seattle, a city whose Patagonia-clad inhabitants like to talk about bicycling, the environment and the eternally dull question (in her opinion) of whether it might rain.

“It’s just not a funny place,” said Ms. Semple, a novelist and veteran comedy writer who worked on the television shows “Arrested Development” and “Mad About You.”

The secret to publishing a runaway best seller is out, and you won’t need to read a book or watch a DVD to get in on it. “The Secret,” a self-help book by Rhonda Byrne, is perhaps the most controversial chart-topper since Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code.” By now you’ve probably heard its premise—that your own thoughts hold the key to a happy, healthy and successful life. Positive thinking attracts positive results, preaches Byrne and a team of “teachers” featured throughout the book. They call it the law of attraction. Your business didn’t fail because you missed a quota or hired the

Offshore sourcing is becoming increasingly popular among publishers who are looking to get cost-effective, quality printing and other publishing services. Forty percent of book publishers said they had worked with an overseas printer in the past year, according to a July 2006 study by the market-trend research company TrendWatch Graphic Arts. Yet, as they say, buyer beware. Global sourcing has its advantages as well as its pitfalls. To successfully navigate an offshore partnership, experienced publishers and printers offer these 15 tips. 1. Research a reputable partner. Do your research to find the largest and most reputable printers available. Tad Crawford, president and publisher,