DIY Life

Just when you are ready to slather on the sunscreen and go searching for beach creatures, your preschooler starts complaining of a stomach ache.

It's tough being stuck inside on summer days, but you know he'll recover faster, and keep the cooties to himself, if you keep him home. If he's not sick enough to last a day on the couch watching movies, but he's not well enough to brave an afternoon at the beach, you'll need some low-key sick-day activities to keep you both from going stir-crazy.

Here are some of my ideas. Share your own in the comments, and we'll all expand our little bag of sick-day tricks!

It used to be that writers needed the deep wallets and promotional resources of big publishing houses to get noticed. Those days are long gone: DIY publishing is a way for writers to reach their audience without sacrificing the integrity of their work, or selling to the big companies.

Even with new technologies making it possible to reach potential readers, sales of self-published books still fall far behind those of traditional ones. The DIY Book Festival is designed to spotlight exceptional books in the self-published area. They are now accepting entries for the 2008 contest, which will take place in February 2009 at the DIY Convention in LA.

With 18 categories in all, there is surely a place where your work will fit. While the grand prize of $1500 is something, I'm sure the publicity and recognition of your book will pay off in even greater numbers. Along with winners for each category, they will choose a book design of the year, author of the year, and publisher of the year. Look through the full contest details for all your entry guidelines and award specifications, then download your entry form here.