I have to apologise for not assembling the Tuesday Blogscan today, and also for missing the annual Daily Grail April Fool's gag for the first time in a long while. My excuse is a serious one - sorting through a huge controversy which has erupted with Amazon trying to take control of the print on demand industry (something which could impact me considerably). You can read about it in full detail on my Publish Yourself website, but in short this is the deal:

Bookselling giant Amazon is using strong-arm tactics in an attempt to take control of the fast-growing Print on Demand publishing industry, pursuing a new, hardline policy for publishers: if you want a print-on-demand book to be stocked on Amazon.com, you need to leave your current printer and sign up with the Amazon-owned printer Booksurge. Publishers have received phone calls from Booksurge with "an offer you can't refuse" - convert to the Amazon-owned company, or the 'Buy' button will be removed from your books' Amazon pages.

The enabling facets of Print on Demand technology make us all potential publishers. As such, we should *all* be concerned about Amazon's attempt to monopolise the industry at this early stage of its development."

How is this relevant to readers of The Daily Grail? Put quite simply, the continuation of TDG depends on the success of my self-publishing projects such as Darklore - otherwise I can no longer justify the time and money required to keep the site running. Amazon have just thrown a fair sized spanner into those plans - thankfully, I have not been directly affected yet, but it might be just a matter of time...

(To be absolutely clear, there is no April Fool's joke hidden within this story. You can revisit old AFD stories here: 2005, 2006, and 2007)

Us! When the Daily Grail audience is mobilised, we bring teh power. Thanks to all those kind folks who got their voting shoes on, TDG has won the 2007 Zorgy Award for "Best Website (News Summary)" (and also we were the only nominee in any category to top 1000 votes). Appreciate the love you've shown us here, which I think is mainly a testament to the hard work of all our TDG admins, not to mention all the Daily Grail members who post thought-provoking comments and blog entries to make the site a fun place to hang out and discuss weirdness of various colours and flavours.

Make sure you scan the entire list of nominees and winners - there are some cool sites and resources in there, worth a long night of browsing through.

I'm slayed with a flu at the moment, so apologies if updates are a bit scarce this week. New briefs should continue as normal, but some features I had planned for this week may have to wait until I can handle the glare of the monitor...

A quick heads-up to note that I have added a couple more blog feeds to the far right hand side of the page. These are to the always fun Cabinet of Wonders (more precisely, CoW's "Damn Data" blog) - which takes a more in-depth look at all things Fortean - and also to a "new" blog called Paranormalia. It's not exactly new, having been around for a little while now, but blogger Robert McLuhan has only now really started updating regularly. It provides some thought-provoking musings on different paranormal topics.

As with all the feeds on the right hand side of the page, TDG members can pick and choose which ones they want to see - just go into "My Account" via the menu, and tick (or untick) the boxes in the Feed section.

Just a quick note to introduce two new Daily Grail admins - Perceval and Turner Young. TY will be doing Friday news briefs from next week, while Perceval is helping out as needed - starting with today's news. Hopefully the helping hands will allow me to focus on improving TDG and offering more feature content. Give the lads a warm welcome!

Also, while I'm noting changes here on the Daily Grail, the bi-weekly roundups are now named "Blogscans", just to point out that they are links to blogs (and podcasts) - so the content is likely speculative and/or opinionated (but nearly always fun!). As always, with the weird topics we cover here on TDG, you should take a hot cup of caveat lector with you on your travels.

Addressing a few site matters: I think I'll drop the radio schedules from the site, as I'm not sure anybody uses them. If there is anything of note, I can always create a standalone story to inform readers. At the moment, it's just another drain on my time, which I don't think really benefits readers - please do let me know if I'm wrong.

Also, I am in the process of recruiting some extra site admins (once again, due to TDG taking up so much of my time). We already have one super-quality addition to the team - details soon. If you think you can contribute to the site as well, please drop me an email (my name, @ dailygrail.com).

As mentioned before Xmas, I'm the January 'Author of the Month' at Graham Hancock's website, and as such I'll be discussing various topics on Graham's messageboard, ranging from Darklore to Dan Brown, the Daily Grail, and how I see the current state and future of the genre(s) etc. It's a great place to get stuck into some serious chatting on these topics, so I'd love to see y'all get over there - post some new threads with questions, or respond to any threads that I start. There's all sorts of weirdness within my head jostling for the front door, so things should get interesting (or, if you're very lucky, ugly).

Okay, that's me - I'm out for a week or so taking a break from this madhouse! I'd like to wish all and sundry the very best festive season, and all the best for 2008. Thanks for all your support over the past year(s)! As a heads-up, I'd like to point out that Graham Hancock is graciously hosting me as 'Author of the Month' on his website next month (January), discussing Darklore and any other topics that come up (TDG, Darklore's new publishing model, my essay on sounds of altered states, The Guide to the Solomon Key etc). So take a look at my essay (if you haven't already), and let's discuss some serious weirdness come January!

Finally, a Christmas gift from me to you. The music video for TOOL's 'Vicarious' (from the album 10,000 Days) has been released, and is a real feast for the eyes (and, obviously, the ears) - both guitarist Adam Jones and artist Alex Grey worked on the clip. I've posted it here on TDG, but to enjoy it properly you just have to see it full-screen on your TV via the DVD release (Amazon US and UK). Very, very DMT experience in my opinion...well played sirs!!

Lastly, I do have to remind anyone that hasn't purchased our anthology Darklore, that if you want to give back to TDG in any way, you can't do better than buying a copy of the book. As I've mentioned previously, proceeds from the $13.95 price go to not only TDG's kitty, but also to all the various writers who write for free on their blogs all year - the Nick Redferns, Michael Prescotts etc. Please give back to the community by supporting Darklore. Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas approaches, and as usual I'm taking a little time to just kick back, enjoy being with family without TDG imposing upon my time. I'll likely not post for the week between Christmas and New Year, and might even take an early mark at the end of this week - don't stress, I will be back in the New Year. I always encourage the other admins to take time as well, but leave it in their hands as to what they want to do. As such, it's likely there won't be much happening here next week. Y'all are more than welcome to continue posting blogs, or interesting news to the Stream section though, if the mood strikes. Thanks for all your support in 2007, and here's looking to a huge 2008!

I was recently interviewed by Tristan Gulliford from Reality Sandwich, all about TDG and the topics we cover: "Liminal States with Greg Taylor". It's currently the featured article over there at RS (a site worth checking regularly, with a list of well-known 'alternative' contributors ranging from Daniel Pinchbeck to Erik Davis and Douglas Rushkoff). Whether you are interested in my thoughts is another matter...