Danielle Steel is going digital

NEW YORK – Another brand-name writer has joined the e-book party: Danielle Steel.

The prolific, best-selling novelist said Thursday that 71 of her books — and that's not even all of them — will be made available digitally Feb. 24, including her latest, "One Day at a Time." Other works include "Sunset in St. Tropez," "The Promise" and "Leap of Faith."

In recent weeks, John Grisham and Tom Clancy also have agreed to allow their novels to come out as e-books, a tiny, but quickly growing market.

Tolkien Book To Come Out This Spring

An early, long-unpublished work by J.R.R. Tolkien is coming out.

"The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun," a thorough reworking in verse of old Norse epics that predates Tolkien's writing of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, will be published in May by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

According to Houghton, the book will include an introduction by Tolkien and notes by his son, Christopher Tolkien.

J.R.R. Tolkien, whose fantasy novels have sold millions of copies, died in 1973. "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun" was written in the 1920s and '30s, when the author was teaching at Oxford University.

Quote of the Day for the Writer

"Easy reading is damn hard writing"

-- Nathanial Hawthorne

Molly Ringwald To Pen 40-Something Book

Actress MOLLY RINGWALD is writing a new book about life as a 40-something.The star, who became the face of many 1980s teen movies including Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club, turned 40 last year (Feb08) and realised it's such a significant age, she's writing about it.

Ringwald, who is pregnant with twins, has struck a deal with publishing house HarperCollins and her untitled literary debut will hit stores at the end of 2009.The actress says, "It's not just about 40, but people of my generation catching up and what that's like, and how you have to re-identify yourself at that age in a culture that's pretty youth-driven."

Once you've been 40, you've been through a few car wrecks and there's a lot on interesting stuff to examine."

Stephen King Disses Twilight's Stephenie Meyer

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Count Stephen King among those not swooning over Edward Cullen.

In what should have been a controversy-free interview with USA Weekend to promote his latest book, the horror master has slammed Twilight creator Stephenie Meyer's writing prowess...by flat-out saying she has none.

What started with an innocent question on the recent juggernaut success of fellow mainstream writers Meyer and J.K. Rowling quickly devolved into a full-scale denouncement of the former's skills.

"The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephanie Meyer can't write worth a darn," he said. "She's not very good."

Leave it to an author not to mince his words.

Possibly sensing the worldwide fallout from inflaming millions of Twilight loyalists, King went on to say that while Meyere's writing may bite the big one, her storytelling is compelling...at least to a certain, less experienced segment of the population.

"People are attracted by the stories, by the pace and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it's very clear that she's writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It's very exciting and it's thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because they're not overtly sexual.

"A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet."

While King seemed to reserve his choicest words for Meyer, she wasn't the only best-selling author eviscerated by him. On the contrary, King declared Perry Mason author Erle Stanley Gardner "terrible," Dean Koontz "sometimes…just awful," and James Patterson "a terrible writer" who is nonetheless "very very successful."

Obama's Campaign Mgr Gets 7-Figure Book Deal!

NEW YORK – Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has agreed to a seven-figure deal to write a book about last year's presidential election.

"The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory" will be published by Viking next fall.

According to a statement issued Wednesday by Viking, the book will offer a unique, high-level account, including "the deliberations about whether to run against long odds, the epic primary battle with Hillary Clinton, the drama of the general election campaign against John McCain and the strategic roads taken — and not taken ... The book will also detail the business lessons to be learned from the formation and the functioning of an unprecedented $1 billion start-up — use of technology, crisis management, grass roots, and personnel management."

Viking is an imprint of Penguin Group (USA).

Interest was strong for Plouffe's book. The Obama campaign not only raised the most money ever for a presidential election — some $750 million — but is widely credited for being among the most sophisticated and well organized. Plouffe's literary representative, Washington attorney Robert Barnett, told The Associated Press that 17 imprints (some within the same publishing house) competed for the book.

"For those of us who had been Obama supporters and received dozens, if not hundreds of e-mails throughout the campaign from David Plouffe, you came away with the feeling that you knew this guy and wanted to know more," Viking President Clara Ferraro told the AP. "His e-mails were very motivating and sincere. I would read one of them and think, `This campaign is so smart.'"

Some of those e-mails may end up in the book, Ferraro said.

Ferraro and Barnett declined to offer financial details, but two publishing executives said that bidding reached at least $1.5 million to $2 million. The executives asked not to be identified, saying they were not authorized to discuss negotiations.

Barnett has worked on many million-dollar contracts; his clients include President Barack Obama, former President Clinton and former first lady Laura Bush.

John Grisham: `I've got the easiest life in the world!'

NEW YORK – John Grisham has no desire to ever run for office again.

"I wouldn't take a seat in the U.S. Senate if it was given to me and guaranteed for 20 years with no opposition," says Grisham, who served as a Democratic representative in the Mississippi state House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990.

Getting fired up, he declares, "Look, I've got the easiest life in the world. I don't want to go to Washington and sit through subcommittee hearings on Medicare. How much fun is that? No."

Besides, he's having too much fun writing books. Grisham, who turns 54 on Sunday and has started an official Facebook page to reach out to fans, had an especially good time working on his new legal thriller, "The Associate."

The author, who splits his time between his farmhouse in Mississippi and a plantation near Charlottesville, Va., hired a young lawyer to be his research assistant and gather off-the-record stories from associates in New York firms for his book "The Associate". He also read blogs by disgruntled lawyers painting brutal portraits of the workplace.

"This is not cheap factory labor — these are Ivy League kids," he says, "and they're just getting chewed up and treated like (they're) disposable."

Doubleday released "The Associate" last week and ordered up 2.8 million copies of the book, already topping best-seller lists.

The publishing world needs superstars like Grisham, J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Myer to write popular fiction that sells books, says Grisham's longtime agent, David Gernert.

Grisham, who generally ignores critics' reviews, loves getting feedback from fans.

"He certainly enjoys going out and meeting or hearing from his readers — and I think, in a slightly perverse way, he even enjoys getting the letters from readers who say, `I found a mistake on page 127,'" Gernert says of the celebrity author. "There's kind of a connection between John and his readers."

Paramount Pictures has already purchased the movie rights and cast 22-year-old Shia LaBeouf in the leading role.

"It's good for the career, good for the book business — very excited about it," says Grisham, whose books have been turned into movies starring Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Matt Damon and Samuel L. Jackson.

Another deal that excites him: Hillary Clinton's new gig as Secretary of State. Grisham and his wife were big supporters of Clinton during the past presidential campaign and were disappointed when she lost the Democratic primary to Barack Obama.

If Clinton were in the White House, Grisham joked they'd "still be at the Inauguration."

As for President Obama, Grisham says, "He's very smart, he's shrewd. He has good people around him. And he wants to be a great leader and a great president. And I think he's up to it."

Grisham thinks Obama's hope-soaked honeymoon will last a long time. But the political junkie wonders why anyone would want to be president.

Grisham, who has sold 235 million books worldwide, likes his job better.