Shebooks, a new digital publisher, hopes to give women readers what they want, the way they want it: short e-books, all by women, which can be downloaded and read in an hour or two.

Over beers in a rental in Mendocino one evening, six young writers kicked around the idea of starting a new literary magazine-a journal that would publish what they liked to read, not be too polite, and tap into the East Bay’s thriving literary scene.