[jay_kyburz]

I'm often laughed at when I suggest it, but I think the publishing world needs to look at what's happening with free to play games.

You remove the barrier to entry so that as many people as possible will try your product (free).

You identify those people who really enjoy your book and want to consume more of the same.

You provide them with so much content that they can spend as must as they like.

It's not unreasonable for people to spend 100's of dollars a month enjoying their favorite pastimes.

Why put a $15 cap on it per book.

[yolesaber]

Congratulations, you invented the magazine.

[jay_kyburz]

I see you are not familiar with free to play games, or magazines, or both.

[toyg]

The problem is that content generation for books is extremely expensive and non-repeatable. What are you going to sell, the same word over and over? Illustrations (which are expensive themselves)?

[lmm]

At the high level, sell commissioned side-stories for the super-fans. Below that, special limited editions, expensive bonus features, alternate endings, merchandise.

[toyg]

Stephen King (or rather his publisher) experimented with a lot of these options through the years. He was widely shunned in the writing community. There are important cultural elements that stand in the way of such models.

[kevinr]

Folks are experimenting with models like this around Kickstarter, Patreon, Serial Box, etc.

The jury's still out on how successful it will be, for what kinds of projects, but I think it's clear that the world in which $15 retail packages are the only form factor prose fiction is ever sold in is basically gone, and that's probably for the better.

My favorite early example of this was Shadow Unit (http://shadowunit.org/), an entirely donation-supported serial.