The Author as Agent of Change
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
The trouble, of course, with IBM's experiments with personal computers is that their fan-base is largely a bunch of nerdy geeks who want this kind of thing to work, and really doesn't tell you anything about the broader world.
So, one thing Cory's success tells you is that, even when you restrict the audience to "copyright geeks who want this kind of thing to work," it can work. Additionally, those copyright geeks have friends and family, and some of them are noticing how those nerdy copyfighters consume literature, and it gets talked about, a fact implicitly betrayed in your qualifier "largely".
It's easy to fire off an "It won't work," but the article itself discusses many of the strengths of the model in question, rendering your complaint moot; Even if the viability of Doctorow's publishing model isn't demonstrated solely on the basis of it working for him, it is supported in the article with other observations, as well.
Don't think that because you've criticized one pillar of the case for direct publishing that you've won the day, nor even raised a serious objection. You have very much more work to do before you've demonstrated "[t]he trouble...with Cory Doctorow's experiments" in a meaningful way.
I have no doubt that this model can fail, but it doesn't take Doctorow to pull it off.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Free_Culture_...
When Lessig "accuses" societies of x-financing themselves with high journal prices, he actually does the same, using his secured tenure. I'm almost certain, that he couldn't care less about the Free Culture's contributions to his pension plan's bottom line. Or of other's, for that matter -- I guess.
Then again, cross-financing i.e. investigative journalism didn't serve power well, and in the end of the day, it was obvious to almost completely replace it with PR for the publishers. Cory also knows this: there is far less overhead to write fiction than to track down and uncover i.e. the broadcast flag. He can achieve the former, but could not kindle and leverage social pressure to prevent HDMI from happening. Kudos to him, that he tried.
OTOH, nothing really stops publishers to degenerate into parasites, either. They can be useful, and some are, but on the whole, the economics can be completely changed -- not unlike when movable type came in. Moreover, one can cite examples, when publishers/media are downright harmful, only to maximise private profit. Lessig and Doctorow raise this issue: publishers seem to be doing their part of fulfilling the prophecy too.
Yes, he's taken some risks with technology, but he's also worked hard promoting himself to mitigate that risk.
I am not a fan of his writing, but I admire his dogged determination to get up every day and be a writer, in an age when anyone else you asked would tell you to give up and get a job with a future.