We’ve now fixed the bug. If you’re in the middle of reading a book in Google Reader you won’t be affected. If you’ve finished books in Google Reader, it’s possible you might receive an installment from those books, which is unfortunately an unavoidable consequence of our fixing this bug.

If you previously finished a book and expected another book to auto-start and didn’t see it, you can correct the problem by unsubscribing and resubscribing to the feed in Google Reader. Then the feed will update properly and bring you up to speed.

Susan Danziger
Founder and CEO, DailyLit
susan [at] dailylit [dot] com

Diane von Furstenberg Brings Favorite Book to DailyLit for Free
Iconic designer Diane von Furstenberg has a holiday gift for you: one of her favorite reads this year is now available on DailyLit for free.  Madame de Stael: The First Modern Woman is a fast-paced biography that tells the glamorous, dramatic story of a woman who was a true force to be reckoned with. Vogue Magazine called it “a timely mediation on female power and an inspiring profile of one woman’s courage.” Thanks to Diane and the publisher, it’s free through the end of January. Read it.

New! DailyLit Kicks off “Big Ideas”
“Big Ideas” is designed to inspire you with new ideas for both work and play.  Kicking off this new channel is inspiration from Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book Crush It! Cash In on your Passion.  He grew his family’s wine business and became a national industry leader, landing him at #18 on AskMen.com’s list of 50 most influential Men of 2009. Read it–FREE.

DailyLit’s Big Read: Short Story by John Grisham
Bestselling author John Grisham just released his first ever collection of short stories, Ford County–and we’ve selected one as this month’s Big Read. “Fetching Raymond” is a simple, powerful story about a day one family knew was coming but still can’t face. Read it–FREE.

Reader Challenge
As bestselling author Daniel Pink wrote, exercising your creativity leads to personal and professional success.  With that in mind, and holiday dinners fast approaching, this month’s reader challenge asks you to imagine a fictional holiday gathering and describe–in no more than 50 words–a character, conversation or event at your holiday meal. Share your mini-stories in our Reader Challenge forum. And to sweeten the pot, we’ll select three winners, each of whom will receive a copy of Mollie Katzen’s new book, Get Cooking.

New reads
–Grammar Girl: She’s on the scene to make grammar easy and fun with her “quick and dirty” tips.  We’ve got a selection from her new book that will make you a better writer. Read it–FREE.
–Jane Perry Returns: In a second piece of original writing, Laurel Dewey’s inimitible heroine Detective Jane Perry returns to DailyLit. Get into her head with “You Can’t Judge a Book by its Cover,” a blog entry by the detective. Read it–FREE. (And if you missed the first installment, “An Unfinished Death,” read it here–FREE.)

Pause Your Books for the Holidays
You’ve always been able to suspend and resume delivery of your books using the links at the end of any installment. Now, with the holidays coming up, when you want to suspend your book, you can set a date for it to automatically resume.  Just click on the “suspend” link at the bottom of any installment to set it up.

Upload Your Picture Now–You May Win a Grisham Book
To make our community a little friendlier, join us for some facetime here at DailyLit.  Help us out by uploading a personalized profile picture. Your face, your cat, your favorite painting–doesn’t matter what you choose. And everyone with a personalized picture uploaded by 11:59pm EST on Sunday, November 22nd will be automatically entered to win one of five copies of John Grisham’s new book Ford County.

We hope you’re enjoying the stories.

For status updates please follow DailyLit on Twitter.

Update: 11:17 pm – Maintenance completed.

For status updates please follow DailyLit on Twitter.

Update: 11:20pm Maintenance is finished and DailyLit is back online.

“Even in a world of Internet business precocity, Mr. Karp’s trajectory stands out. He started interning for the animation producer Fred Seibert when he was 14…soon, an employee of Mr. Seibert’s put him in touch with the owners of UrbanBaby, where he saved enough money to allow him to go to Japan….And when UrbanBaby sold to CNET in July 2006, Mr. Karp was able to cash out the sweat equity he’d built up.

“By the time Mr. Karp was 19, a new word had entered the lexicon: “tumblelog,” which referred to short-form blogging…Mr. Karp says he ‘kept waiting’ for one of the established blog platform players to set up a platform for tumblelogging. When, after a year, that hadn’t happened, Mr. Karp decided to do it himself.”

We can’t wait to hear David’s thoughts on the digital world.

The Digital Publishing Group is an industry group designed to educate, inspire, and empower publishing professionals to take advantage of the digital space. The group holds monthly events featuring talks by leaders in the digital realm. All industry professionals (and aspiring professionals), including publishers, agents, authors, bloggers, service providers, and booksellers are welcome to attend.

The Digital Publishing Group is sponsored by DailyLit (www.dailylit.com). Previous events have featured Debbie Stier, SVP and Associate Publisher of HarperStudio (co-sponsored by the Book Industry Study Group), Gail Glickman Horwood, SVP, Digital Programming & Strategy at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and Neelan Choksi, CEO of Lexcycle/Stanza. For more information, visit the Digital Publishing Group’s site on Meetup.

Tip #1: Use “More All” on your BlackBerry

If you read your DailyLit on your BlackBerry, you may already know that it only downloads the very beginning of emails when you open them, and gets the rest when reading. For that to happen, the BlackBerry must have network access, and in places like the subway, that may not be possible. If you’d like to read during your commute, before you go underground you should go to your installment and open it, then press the menu button and select “More All.” This causes the BlackBerry to download the rest of the message and mark it as unread again.

So, you can read 100 Ways to Succeed/Make Money while you’re on the 1, or the 6, or whatever number gets you where you need to go. (And if it’s not taking you on vacation too, I hope it’s at least air conditioned.)

Look for more tips coming soon!

Have a tip to share? Email it to us at support [at] dailylit [dot] com.

Our hosting provider previously had a perfect track record and DailyLit had been available without unscheduled service interruptions. We expect to return to our usual service level shortly.