Happy Freebie Friday

UPDATE: The winner of THE LAST MARTIN is Sharon K. Mayhew. Congrats! Email your physcial addy to contests(AT)knightagency.net.

CLIENT NEWS: RITA noms rolled in this morning, and we want to congratulate our clients who are in the running this year -

Erin Kelly - MORE THAN A STRANGER, Golden Heart nominee
Melissa Mayhue - A HIGHLANDER'S HOMECOMING, Paranormal category

Great job ladies!!!

CLIENT NEWS: Last night, we had fabulous time chatting with USA Today author Katherine Garbera. If you weren't able to make it, you can check out the chat transcript here.

Report from Cyberspace -

Dorchester Publishing is in hot water again for not paying its authors and selling digital copies of books to which they no longer hold rights. Novelist Brian Keene recently wrote about his long struggle with the notorious house and is calling for a boycott - GalleyCat

Google received a blow this week when their Amended Settlement was thrown out of court as not being "fair, adequate, and reasonable." The judge noted that many of the objections would be removed if the option was opt-in settlement, rather than opt-out settlement.  - The Bookseller, Industry reactions to the decision can also be found on GalleyCat

New York Times bestselling author Barry Eisler got tongues wagging with his decision to turn down a two-book, $500K deal from St. Martins in favor of becoming a self-pubbed author. Meanwhile, in a startling turn of events St. Martins reportedly paid $2M in a 4-book deal to Amanda Hocking, who famously made headlines recently by hitting the USA Today list as a self-pubbed, digital-only author - Daily Beast and Publishers Lunch (subscription only)

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Leave your name in the comments to win a copy of THE LAST MARTIN by Jonathan Friesen. The winner will be announced on Monday.

The 411: There's always a Martin. One Martin. Martin Boyle already has plenty to worry about. His germaphobic mother keeps him home from school if she hears so much as a sneeze, and his father is always off somewhere reenacting old war battles. Julia, the most beautiful girl in school, won't even speak to Martin, and the gym teacher is officially out to get him. Which is why Martin really doesn't need this curse hanging over his head. On a trip to the family cemetery, Martin wanders among the tombstones of his ancestors and discovers a disturbing pattern: when one Martin is born, the previous Martin dies. And---just his luck---Martin's aunt is about to give birth to a baby boy, who will, according to tradition, be named Martin. Martin must find a way to break the curse, but every clue seems to lead to a dead end. And time is running out.