Free Gaz 5 promotion from www.DriveThruRPG.com !

[DeepShadow of FoS]

http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm gives an interesting look into the state of web-publishing that might be germane to this discussion.

I especially like the following analogy:

"There's a different analogy which I think, in many ways, captures the reality even better. Anyone who has ever bought a car-new or used-knows perfectly well that one of the standard techniques used by a car salesman is to offer you the opportunity to take a "test drive." So far from being concerned that a test drive represents "lost mileage," car dealers know damn good and well that it's often the test drive which closes the sale.

"Does it always? Of course not. Usually, in fact, people simply take the test drive and wind up walking away. Does the car dealer then start moaning about "lost sales," or whine about the mileage he's given up on a new car?

"Hell, no. The dealer just shrugs his shoulders, writes it off to the inevitable overhead expense of his business, and offers the next customer a test drive. But if car dealers followed the moronic practices of most publishers (and, to the best of my knowledge, the entire music recording industry) they would sternly refuse to let anyone even sit in one of their cars-much less give it a test drive-unless they'd already paid for it.

"I leave it to you to imagine just how long such a car dealer would stay in business. Sadly, the common sense of lowly car dealers is beyond the grasp of the supposedly sophisticated publishing industry."