McQueen conceived of a book project titled, "100 Stories for Haiti," in which he'd call upon authors around the globe to contribute stories of 1,000 words or less for an anthology to benefit Haiti.

For the one week only, publishers and authors offer thousands of original ebooks for free and at deep discounts to encourage book lovers around the globe to give ebooks a try.

The whole city seemed like a walking party to our eighteen year old sensibilities. It did not take me more than a couple of days to realize that New Orleans held for me the best of original American culture.

"Color faded from the world for me the moment I heard [my dad] was really gone," recalls John Buffalo Mailer, the youngest son of Norman Mailer.

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), in an email to members Friday, reported U.S. wholesale ebook sales for the month of January, 2010 rose 261 percent to $31.9 million from the same period a year ago.