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If you're a fan of Orson Scott Card's Ender series, check out "Mazer in Prison," about a small slice of the general's time in forced relativistic flight. If you recall, he had to take a trip just to prolong his life so he could train Ender.

At this point Mazer Rackham didn't know it was going to be Ender who would command over the last war, or even that the IF had settled on recruiting children, but he does make Hiram Graff's acquaintance via ansible, and that's the interesting bit.

Here's the interesting business bit for me. The story was written for Card's online Intergalactic Medicine Show magazine. I'm not likely to buy it, even for $2.50 an issue, because I don't read all that much science fiction generally, just Card and a couple others, and not all of Card -- I like Ender and Alvin Maker. It's nice that Card is trying to bring along less familiar scifi writers, but you can't force readers to try something new.

I was drawn to the idea of an audio short story. It's just over an hour and only cost 69 cents (member pricing) on Audible. Just a snack to please myself.

That's going to be the key to the success of micropayments -- for newspaper stories or anything else. The purchase has to be one-off and small. Like iTunes. You don't think twice about buying something that costs less than a dollar. For a news story it would have to be pennies. It's like an impulse candy bar purchase at the checkout. Subscriptions or any sort of commitment isn't going to work.

It's not just that the price makes a negligible dent in your budget, there's something fun about buying something that's valuable and pleasurable for such a small amount of money. You feel like you got a bargain, almost like you've gotten away with something, and in hard times I think more and more people might get off on that feeling.

Update March 10, 2009: "Mazer in Prison" doesn't seem to be available as a single story on Audible anymore. It must have been a temporary offer. Pity.