llasram, Barcy, Krystian, Halk, Taylor -- thanks for your kind words. I was hoping for a 20% return from those who are completely satisified. But as I say, these are only interim results. Most of the payments were actually made upfront, which is indeed not what I ask. Maybe things will change. After all, if I weren't a pathetic optimist I'd never have taken up writing in the first place.
I don't know any other way of distributing electronic fiction which does not impose DRM on the reader. I feel that DRM will hamper, if not prevent, the widespread adoption of e-reading. Moreover, the p-book trade is in real trouble. If authorship is to be even more heavily discouraged than it has been in the past, this bodes ill for the whole entertainment industry.
For those like hidari who may not know, it takes between 1,000 and 3,000 hours of work to produce a novel; sometimes a lot more. It also takes long dedication to the craft. If one must also pursue another job (as must the vast majority of authors), finding time to write when one is not exhausted or distracted is not easy. The only reason that novels continue to get written is the writer's human urge to communicate. I'm not sure that that, on its own, is strong enough to resist the pressures of the 21st century.
The reader's responsibility is very important. Reader and author have a sort of compact. That's why readers should care whether authors (and indeed their publishers, not all of whom are ogres
) get fair compensation for their work.