Robin writes a book (and you get a copy) →

Robin Sloan is writing a novella. Rather than try to find a publisher for it — a difficult proposition for most writers, since few publishing houses will touch a novella from all but the most established authors — he’s turning to the Internet. Using Kickstarter, a crowd-sourcing web site for funding projects and endeavors, he’s hoping to raise enough money to self-publish the finished book.

Sloan has already published two short stories to his blog, accompanied by gorgeous cover art: Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store and The Writer & the Witch. They’re both available on Amazon for the Kindle, each for 99¢.

This definitely sounds like the coming new model of publishing. Sloan quickly surpassed his $3,500 goal and is (right now) approaching $6,000 with 214 backers. That’s quite a bit more than the average advance for a first novel, let alone 30,000-word novella.