Fans of sci-fi author Neil Gaiman may already know he will be appearing in SF next month at a very cool event in conjunction with Litquake and The Booksmith (Sunday, October 5th, Kabuki Sundance Theaters, $28 admission includes a signed, first edition). In what amounts to a fair to high-quality coincidence, for a limited time Gaiman’s publisher is offering free downloads of his 1997 bestselling novel Neverwhere, adapted from Gaiman’s BBC television series of the same name.

Last week HarperCollins launched a new website called Authonomy (say that three times fast), which is essentially a virtual slushpile where Harper’s U.K. editors can discover new talent. Aspiring writers upload portions of their manuscripts (10,000-word minimum), which are reviewed and ranked by Authonomy members. The cream apparently rises to the top — five high-ranking writers are already in consideration for publication. Another reaction here.

Another use for old books – designer Laura Cahill makes them into vases and furniture. While looking around for discarded objects to use as raw material, she kept seeing used books everywhere: “I discovered that the glue in old books make them extremely difficult to recycle. Aware of this, I challenged myself to turn the secondhand books that I had been collecting, into desirable objects such as furniture, lighting and ornaments.”