The idea of your novel intrigues me, and I definitely will be downloading the ebook… I may even purchase it so that I may help you out. Either way, thanks for spreading the word and the love!

Grin

From a sweltering city in Florida

Cheers,
Robert
Bratislava, Slovakia

I think the “pay-as-you-go” model can work sometimes: I met Catherynne M. Valente at Wiscon and she told me she made the equivalent of a small press advance on one of her online books.

That said, I think a defining factor is that authors the succeed with this model are natives to the internet, with a good web presence and manage to develop a personally involved audience who want to help her/him out: didn’t work for Stephen King, however.

You’re more likely to find an audience and get some attention than any kind of substantial income, but that’s better than having your manuscripts gather dust.

Over the past 8 years I’ve written a trilogy of speculative fiction novels based on themes of environmental sustainability. I am in the midst of editing them and a year or three ago, before the birth of my daughter, I had my first initial encounters with the publishing world. My initial assetment of that business is that it pushes all the risk onto authors, who provide the creative resources, while maximizing profit for shareholders and a network of middlemen and gatekeepers.

I am an owner of a small (but quickly growing) business providing scientific programming and online environmental reporting. This success, together with not wanting to sacrifice relationships with my family, leaves me little room to jump through the standard hoops required by publishers.

I have been indulging a fantasy lately of setting up a wikitikki site and publishing my books in serial as an online event. I was thinking of something like the open content license you had mentioned and running off donations from readers/collaborators who wanted to help reader finance the work. I could then work on a milestone basis so I could write without sacrificing cash flow. At the end of the cycle the world could have the book. I just want to be paid for my hobby as I go.

The event would work by engaging blogs and zines with a similar content focus to that of the book (environmental sustainability). They could publish exerpts or derivative works as they liked in return for linking back to my site.

Do you think something like this could work? Any ideas?

Cheers,
Sam
Joondanna, Western Australia