David R. O'Keeffe is publishing his Science Fiction(ish) novel online under a Creative Commons licence at the rate of one chapter every three days, on his blog.
I’m interested in this kind of venture. Have many people leapt from self publishing like this to a publishing deal in the genre of Science Fiction? It would seem that the odds are stacked against the writer, and yet there must be a future way of doing this and making a living?
One good answer is Internet Marketing. Writers can create their own membership websites and charge $10/month for unlimited access to all their works. If you can find 1000 people to join you can quit your job and write full time.
This may sound difficult, and it will certainly take 1-2 years to build up enough members to make a living, but it can be done. Start slowly by building an email list for free content, then after you have 10-20 stories available lock them up and only give access to paying members. Many people will pay $120 per year for quality content.