This October, we're raising the profile of anthropomorphic literature and bringing furry stories to a wider audience.

The Furry Writers' Guild has joined forces with some of our fandom's great authors and publishers to offer special deals during the month, from free shipping and discount codes to free books.

Bad Dog Books' website has been repurposed as a store for FurPlanet's e-books and comics. 45 items are for sale, at prices from $2.95 to $9.99.

Two free e-books are on offer for those wishing to try before they buy: Kyell Gold's collection Gold Standard, and "Thou Shalt Not Kill" by FuzzWolf.

Promoted authors include Kevin Frane, Ben Goodridge, Cyanni, and Rechan; over 40 are represented in total, including anthologies. Art packs by Kadath are also available.

Buyers may download "DRM free" works in both epub (Nook, Sony Reader, iBooks) and mobi (Kindle-compatible) formats.

New products are to be announced via a dedicated blog and on @BadDogBooks.

Bad Dog Books, founded in 2005 by Alex Vance, became a FurPlanet imprint in 2011.

Claws and Starships: A Collection of Pelted Short Fiction by M.C.A. Hogarth is a selection of six short stories that I enjoyed reading just recently. Set in her Paradox universe, the Pelted consist of many races of anthros created by humans in the distant past through bio-engineering. (Read more about them.) Since then, they've grown, diversified, colonized worlds and reconciled with their creators. This particular collection shows a cross-section of several different Pelted cultures, ranging from the technologically advanced to more primitive societies.

Originally published in electronic format in December 2011 (at US$4.99), online sales proved so successful that in June 2013, paperback and Kindle versions became available. That's a good sign! The whole thing is just shy of 50,000 words and over 200 pages long. (ISBN: 9781466035553, 1490427228 and 9781490427225.)

Interesting news for writers of fanfiction as Amazon announces Kindle Worlds, an e-book platform which invites published and aspiring authors to submit original titles based on licensed properties, to be sold in the Kindle Store.

Kindle Worlds titles of 10,000 words and upwards will sell for $0.99 - $2.99, with royalties set at 35% of net revenue. Short stories of 5,000 to 10,000 words may also be accepted for publication, with a royalty rate of 20%. The platform is to launch in June.

Many furry scribes, as well as mainstream authors, cut their writing teeth on fanfiction for series as diverse as Pokémon, Harry Potter and the Final Fantasy universe; famously, Fifty Shades of Grey started life as Twilight fanfic.

Cerebus: High Society, part of Canadian comic-book artist Dave Sim's epic comic series Cerebus, is set to be released in an e-book format.

Cerebus ran over December 1977–March 2004. In its 6,000 pages, the series chronicled the adventures of an anthropomorphic aardvark. Initially a parody of sword and sorcery comics, the series explored such topics as politics, high society, and religion.

The High Society subplot is now being released as a "combination e-book, audio book/digital graphic novel/oral history/weekly serialization" after successfully raising over $33,000 in a Kickstarter campaign (with 25 days to go). As the initial $6,000 goal was exceeded in less than nine hours, Dave Sims has promised to release all the Cerebus books as e-books.

E-commerce service PayPal has started a campaign to stop independent e-book publishers from including certain kinds of erotic content in their catalogs, should they be using PayPal to conduct business.

On Saturday February 18, PayPal began threatening to deactivate the accounts of indie book publishers and distributors, if they did not remove books containing certain sexual material – including themes and implied scenarios of: incest, pseudo-incest (including "daddy" fantasies, step-family), fantasies about non-consensual sex or rape, bestiality (widened to include non-human fantasy creatures), and BDSM.

The ban on "non-human fantasy creatures" has prompted some internet commentators to wonder where this leaves publishers of furry erotica, with Bernard Doove's chakats given as an example of what is banned under the new rules.

Ursa Major-award winning author M.C.A. Hogarth has released her latest novel in e-book format: Even the Wingless, the story of an empath ambassador sent to a violent court of shapeshifting dragons, there to try to mend a failing treaty... or be consumed by savagery.

The novel is available on the Kindle store and on Smashwords in all other formats. You can read more about the story, and see accompanying art, on the author's LiveJournal.

Book cover by Rukis

After a long journey, up-and-coming artist and writer Amy "Ringshadow" Meister (FA) has entered the publishing market with her first e-book, Rainbow in the Dark (originally named "Like a Rainbow in the Dark", as a tribute to the Ronnie James Dio song of the same name).

The story, set in an anthropomorphic/furry universe, concerns a closet-gay wolf-raccoon hybrid named Marcus Midnight, a fictional rock star, and his power-metal band Guillotine. After a successful musical career spanning twelve years and six hit albums, Marcus feels burned-out and extremely lonely.

M.C.A. Hogarth is releasing short fiction to e-book formats via the Kindle Store and Smashwords.

Stories include the Ursa Major Award-winning space rescue "In the Line of Duty", furry work from her Pelted and Kherishdar universes and alien tales like the Jokka shorts published by Strange Horizons, plus other stories both unpublished and previously published in hard-to-find magazines.

Smashwords supports all e-book formats. Prices range from $0 to $3.99. See the links above for what's available and what order to read them in.