Casa Robino

With all the kindlery and iPadism in the air, eBooks are (finally) getting some attention. Good.
Good? When I see what Amazon wants to charge me for something they don't need to print, and that they don't need to ship, I see a LOT of room for improvement. And given the price of one digital copy of a book, I almost understand that it will be crippled with DRM.
For those that were living in a cave for the past 10 years, DRM (digital right management) is a tech jargon for pain in the ass. It's the kind of stuff that makes sure that when you buy a CD at the store, you will not be able to rip it to your music player. Woopee, now you got to download pirate copies of the stuff you own...
But the market is young, and if big corporations can't seem to learn from others' very recent mistakes, maybe the authors can. And I just happen to be one.
So let's see what can work.
First, I don't think it's fair to ask people to pay before they see the product. Second, I don't think it's realistic to ask people to pay a lot for something that is copyable infinitely at no cost. Third, I want to have some feedback on what I write.
So here's what I came up with:
I'm going to write a book, and publish the chapters one by one as they get written. The readers will be invited to pledge donations if they can't wait for a chapter to be released. Draft.
You liked that episode ? The next one will be released three days exactly after a total of XX € of donations promisses have been reached. All you have to do is make a comment on this episode with the amount you pledge and your email address in the "email" field (that will be visible only to the author).
Otherwise, the next chapter will be released when the unmotivated author will be finished with it.
I'm skeptical whether it can work in my case because I have a very limited reach. But I'm pretty sure a writer with better communication skills than me could achieve it.
You can have a look on how it's going there. Even read the damn book if you read french.