What if he is only gathering the email addresses of his interested readers? Not only is he getting the ability to contact them directly, he's getting them to pay for the privilege of giving it to him! Also, suppose he's just testing the price point at which people will pay. Given the man's prolific and consistant output, would you pay $12/year and he *guarantees* you a chapter of his latest and greatest novel in the email every month? That seems like a reasonable deal to me. $24 for chapters of two different novels a month? He could guarantee a consistent revenue stream for himself (as opposed to "bursts" using the current method), have a DIRECT relationship with his customers (he writes the words, readers get the bits, no physical product, internet replaces the distrubution mechanism & he keeps all the cash)and makes a LOT more money . Wow-- if it works.
It's not like CNet is going to put Doubleclick out of business. What's the worst case? Doubleclick and the other ad networks will pay cnet a licensing fee, banners to advertisers will cost XXX% more and i'll pay an extra penny on the can of pepsi I order from kozmo. They're all evil.
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What if he is only gathering the email addresses of his interested readers? Not only is he getting the ability to contact them directly, he's getting them to pay for the privilege of giving it to him! Also, suppose he's just testing the price point at which people will pay. Given the man's prolific and consistant output, would you pay $12 /year and he *guarantees* you a chapter of his latest and greatest novel in the email every month? That seems like a reasonable deal to me. $24 for chapters of two different novels a month? He could guarantee a consistent revenue stream for himself (as opposed to "bursts" using the current method), have a DIRECT relationship with his customers (he writes the words, readers get the bits, no physical product, internet replaces the distrubution mechanism & he keeps all the cash)and makes a LOT more money . Wow-- if it works.
It's not like CNet is going to put Doubleclick out of business. What's the worst case? Doubleclick and the other ad networks will pay cnet a licensing fee, banners to advertisers will cost XXX% more and i'll pay an extra penny on the can of pepsi I order from kozmo. They're all evil.