"I logged onto Amazon as the show ended. Score! I'd gone 100 places down in the Amazon rankings. It had reminded people to log on and cancel their pre-orders." Sam Leith discovers the pitfalls of attempting to promote a book about Sod's Law.

• The London Review of Books has made its entire 30th anniversary issue free online; dig in. Its much-talked-about archives-back-to-1979 thing feature has been switched on, too, with the a free piece from each of the distant issues: Alan Bennett on John Gielgud, for instance, from Vol 1 No 5 ("The foot went into the mouth quite early").

• In other unlikely-developments-at-august-publications news, the New Yorker has announced the winners of its "dress your pet as a literary character" contest.

• Overly ambitious literary Halloween costumes (probably not for pets).

• One million, visualised.

• Steampunk, exhibited.

• Difficult books, anatomised.