4. Ebooks are a better deal for writers. [Ebooks are a better
deal for writers] The compensation for writers is pretty thin on
the ground. *Amazing Stories,* Hugo Gernsback's original science
fiction magazine, paid a couple cents a word. Today, science
fiction magazines pay...a couple cents a word. The sums involved
are so minuscule, they're not even insulting: they're *quaint*
and *historical*, like the WHISKEY 5 CENTS sign over the bar at a
pioneer village. Some writers do make it big, but they're
*rounding errors* as compared to the total population of sf
writers earning some of their living at the trade. Almost all of
us could be making more money elsewhere (though we may dream of
earning a stephenkingload of money, and of course, no one would
play the lotto if there were no winners). The primary incentive
for writing has to be artistic satisfaction, egoboo, and a desire
for posterity. Ebooks get you that. Ebooks become a part of the
corpus of human knowledge because they get indexed by search
engines and replicated by the hundreds, thousands or millions.
They can be googled.

Even better: they level the playing field between writers and
trolls. When Amazon kicked off, many writers got their knickers
in a tight and powerful knot at the idea that axe-grinding yahoos
were filling the Amazon message-boards with ill-considered slams
at their work -- for, if a personal recommendation is the best
way to sell a book, then certainly a personal condemnation is the
best way to *not* sell a book. Today, the trolls are still with
us, but now, the readers get to decide for themselves. Here's a
bit of a review of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom that was
recently posted to Amazon by "A reader from Redwood City, CA":