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Random House has teamed up with Politico to create a series of four instant eBooks about the 2012 presidential election.  The series (currently untitled) will only be available in digital format.

According to The New York Times, the first title will be released sometime before Christmas. They will be co-authored by the political news site’s chief White House correspondent Mike Allen and Princeton University journalism professor Evan Thomas. Allen’s writing can be regularly viewed on Politico’s Playbook and Thomas has worked as a political journalist for both Time magazine and Newsweek. Executive editor Jon Meacham will edit the series.

Here’s more from the release: “[The four eBooks] will give readers an unprecedented look behind the scenes of the election in real time, providing detail, color, in-depth analysis beyond the hourly headlines and commentary, and ultimately a look at the final results, and how and why it all happened … Each book will include exclusive reporting from the campaign trail and will chronicle the campaign as it unfolds.” (via Publishers Weekly)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Happy Leap Year! We're sitting here with this extra day that we don't have every year. What are we supposed to do with it? Write.

You have one extra day to finish your novel this year, so here are a few inspirational links to get you writing again.

Nicholson Baker in the New York Review of Books on the joys of saving writers from obscurity and deletion on Wikipedia:

"But the work that really drew me in was trying to save articles from deletion. This became my chosen mission. Here's how it happened. I read a short article on a post-Beat poet and small-press editor named Richard Denner, who had been a student in Berkeley in the Sixties and then, after some lost years, had published many chapbooks on a hand press in the Pacific Northwest." (Thanks, Ed!)

LitPark on why you need to keep writing despite rejection. 

Watch memorist Janice Erlbaum explain how keeping a journal can improve your writing in my web video feature. 

SciFiSignal on the R. Crumb and Philip K. Dick's religious experience.

Finally, our buddy Michael Calderone just landed a new blog over at Politico. Cruise his archives and spice up your novel with biting insights into election coverage in the age of reality television.

"Even though Barack Obama declined to answer the all-important "boxers or briefs" question — who says he's getting a free pass in the media? — the Senator's Us Weekly interview was a huge success, according to WWD.

Off the top of your head, name as many Caldecott Award winning picture books that have been turned into children's television shows starting . . . . NOW!

I thought of My Friend Rabbit which Nelvana tv is turning into a show. That's about it, though. Max and his Wild Things never got into syndication. Forget about the Flotsam show (though the movie potential is VAST). And what about the Smoky Night series? Yeah... maybe not.

In other news, there will also be a Mr. Men Show to boot:

Cartoon Network will be the US home for The Mr. Men Show (52x11'), a new sketch animated series From Chorion Ltd , which is slated to launch on the network in January 2008. Additionally, Cartoon Network is also co-producing the series with Chorion. The Mr. Men Show is based on the Mr. Men and Little Miss books created in the 1970s by Roger Hargreaves. The series is written and produced by Kate Boutilier and Eryk Casermiro and animated in the US by Renegade Animation .