Amazon.com is offering a free subscription to the digest edition of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine is now exclusively available in the Kindle Store. Kindle customers who subscribe will get access to all of the magazine’s editorial content — editor’s recommendations, “Curiosities” (odd books of enduring interest), film reviews, book reviews, cartoons and humor, and “Coming Attractions” (highlights of each issue) — along with one short story, all at no cost.

You KNOW it has always been in the back of your mind: Some day, you KNEW you would write “that book”! Now you can become a published author more easily than at any other time in history! 2011 might just be the year for you to do it!

WOWIO, Inc., an established market leader with an online destination (http://www.wowio.com/) that provides access to rich digital media content and eBooks, is offering free PDF downloads of The Painted Darkness, by Brian James Freeman, for the month of October. The book has received praise from New York Times bestselling authors such as Stewart O’Nan, author of The Night Country and A Prayer for the Dying, who said, “The tone and building dread reminds me of classic Stephen King.

Some people enjoy reading short stories, and some people–for a variety of reasons–avoid them. What about you? Why?