Specifically Spec Fic

A post on GalleyCat says that Random House allowed almost 15,000 free downloads
of Beautiful Children.

That's a lot of chum!

Side note: Today's Writer's Block question is "What is a charmed life?" The answers vary from flippant to interesting.

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is down to the 10 finalists! There is one entry that sure sounds like spec fic (The Prospect of My Arrival by Dwight Okita) and another that could be spec fic but it's hard to tell (Wrecking Civilization Before Lunch by John Ring). Neither is what I would call "traditional" science fiction--science and technology extrapolated to future events or societies. Prospect is more like philosophical spec fic and Wrecking sounds more like absurdist fiction (why would anyone want a floating Barbie Dream House?). No traditional fantasy, either.

The rest of the top ten are mainstream or mystery with at least one historical (I think it has to be pre-World War II to be called historical, but I'm not positive).