Which is the other thing. I'm really just too damned impatient to wait for a science fiction house to decide whether or not they want to take a chance on this book. It simply takes too much time.

How much time? Well, Baen Books asks for nine to twelve months; if you send your book in there, it could conceivably take an entire year to learn your manuscript has been rejected. That's just a ridiculous amount of time. I'm not going to say that the folks of Baen don't legitimately need all that time to wade through the slush pile, but come on. Other publishers require lesser but still weighty ping times: Two to six months, typically. And since many publishers request sample chapters and a synopsis, even if you pass the first cut, there's an additional wait as they read through the whole manuscript.

That is, if they bother to accept unagented manuscripts; many science fiction houses do not. You'll need an agent to present your book. Agents take as much time to read and evaluate as publishers do — and then there's still the process of getting the book read at publishers. Shipping the book to three agents and three publishers took the better part of those two years. If I were on Herbert's timetable in terms of acceptance of the novel, my newborn daughter would be well into elementary school before this book got bought — after which it's an additional one or two years before the book actually hits the stores.

Where, of course, it will have a month (if that) to sell or be wiped off the shelves forever.

Ridiculous.

The bad news for me in publishing the book this way, is that I pretty much guarantee that I forgo any economic benefit from the book: No advance — what am I going to do, pay mayself? — and no royalties. This is, alas and alack, true enough. I'm positioning this book as "shareware" and encouraging folks to send me a dollar if they read it and enjoy it (they can send more if they really enjoy it, of course), but I'm really not holding my breath, waiting for a parade of George Washingtons to tromp into my mailbox. This resignation shouldn't stop you, the reader, from sending me that dollar. Rather the opposite, in fact. Please, prove me wrong. Baby needs shoes.

But here's the question. If I make nothing from this novel, how much worse off am I than the typical first-time author? What does a first-time author get for his or her pains, once the book is accepted? Well, let's see.

First-time authors generally get the double thrill of low advances and low royalty rates. But let's assume a $5000 advance (hey, why not?) and a royalty rate of nine percent (in the middle of the 7-to-12 per cent range listed for paperbacks in my Writer's Market). If the writer has an agent, typically 15% is lopped off the top — the writer is down to $4250. Subtract taxes (don't forget the additional 15.7% for self-employment tax!) and he's down to $2400 or so, depending on his bracket, before state and local tax bites.

At a royalty rate of 9% on a $6 paperback (that comes to 54 cents), our new author will have to sell 9,260 copies of his book before he earns out his advance. After which his 54 cents gets lopped once again by agents and taxes to about a quarter per book. However, most first-time writers, I'm told, are lucky to earn out their advance (which means that have work just as hard at being second-time writers. And they thought the hard part was over).

Figure that it takes four years from completion of writing this first novel to its arrival in the stores, and amortize for his time and trouble. In terms of real money, our first-time author is raking in $600 a year; $50 a month. $1.67 a day. You can make more recycling newspapers. Hell, you can make more going to people's houses and sucking coins out from behind their couch cushions. You could make more, of course (from the book, not the seat cushions). But most don't.

So I don't feel too bad about throwing out the money-earning potential. What I want is people to read the novel. So, here it is. Anyone who wants it can find it and read it. And they'll always be able to find it — it doesn't have to compete for shelf space with other novels. It won't be shipped back en masse, if it doesn't sell like hot cakes in the first month. It will never go out of print or be remaindered. People won't feel like they're gambling with their money on a book they may or may not like.

If they don't like it, they won't be out six bucks. They won't hate me for ripping them off. If they do like it, who knows? Maybe the next book will be in the stores. And maybe they'll come in and buy that one, knowing that a John Scalzi novel is something they'll probably enjoy — it'll be worth the $6. If offering this one on the Web builds an audience, which helps me build a career as a novelist, it's well worth foregoing the advance and royalties. I mean, I'm not that starved for cash. Keep the money, Monty, I want to see what's behind Door Number 2.

So, for the reason of market incompatability, for the reason of impatience, and for reason of shocking lack of monetary concern, Agent to the Stars debuts online, a shareware novel. I'm content with the decision — it's an experiment, a sounding out to see if something like this can actually work. I think it can, and I think this is the novel that makes that point. I hope if you read it and like it, you will actually send me a dollar. That'd be nice. But I'll also like it just fine if you read it, like it, and tell your friends about it. It's a good story. It deserves to be read and enjoyed. I hope you do both.

Drop me in a book store (please!) and watch me head for the racks that contain the Science Fiction.

There are several reasons for this. First, while not a true nerd (I lack the math skills), I exhibit strong nerd-like tendencies: for one thing, I have a Web page. For another, I have a deep, abiding love and interest in science. For yet another, reading is my favorite leisure activity (and for yet another, I went to the University of Chicago). Everyone knows that science fiction is the preferred reading material of the Nerd Nation: In the future, you see, nerds will rule (and the future is here — check Bill Gates' bank account lately?). It's not for nothing that a lot of science fiction has scientists, engineers and other nerd types as their heroes, and the SF that doesn't generally features other misfit types as the heroes instead.

Second, I like the fundamental basic requirement of Science Fiction, which is imagination. Authors in other genres imagine situations or particular circumstances; science fiction authors imagine entire worlds and civilizations. This is quite a step up on the confabulation scale— to dream up a whole new space, and populate it with peoples and situations that make sense in that context. Of course, not every one who writes in the genre is up to the task (and that's why we have bad science fiction), but those that are produce work that is fundamentally more interesting to read, because what has to be imagined right at the beginning.

Third, and the flip side to number two, most fiction that takes place in contemporary time is boring. I remember that Back to Zero came out just as I was heading out of high school, and during my college years, the world was inundated with "searing stories of a dead-end generation" — basically, a bunch of bored 20-year-olds having bisexual sex and doing drugs. While I was, in fact, a reasonably bored 20 year old at the time (it's perhaps the salient quality of 20 year olds), I didn't particularly want to read about other 20 year olds being bored and self-destructive — why should I, when I could just look down my dorm hall? As I get older, I don't notice contemporary fiction getting any better; thankfully, we have moved away from the Bret Easton Ellis/Jay McInerny axis of literary ennui, but the replacement fiction has not been notably more engaging.