When I was hanging out with Melanie Lynne Hauser at a bar near the (downtown) Omaha Literary Festival last month, she told me about a new marketing idea that her husband was putting together, a destination website for free, downloadable e-books that published authors had taken out of their metaphorical desk drawers to give away to readers. That site, AuthorArcs.com, is now online as a beta, and the offerings include not just Hauser's unsold novel Jumble Pie, but stories by J.A. Konrath and Robert W. Walker as well.

"There are many websites that offer thousands of downloadable short stories, novellas and novels with no vetting of quality," Hauser explains, but by focusing on published authors, and the manuscripts their agents shopped around but just couldn't find a home for, AuthorArcs.com hopes to ensure a high baseline standard—the goal is as much about giving something back to loyal fans as it is about tempting new readers with a freebie.