If your primary incentive is the per-word fee, I imagine hacker news is not your target market.   I mean, don&#x27;t get me wrong, there are a lot of programmers who enjoy sci-fi, both in creation and consumption, but the differential between market rate for programmer time and writer time is so great that until you are huge, what you get paid as a writer is symbolic if your dayjob is at a bay-area tech-company.<p>I am a wanna-be writer of fiction who works as a computer nerd.  I have written a technical book, so I have some experience, and I really want to write some fiction.  (I have a whole series of elaborate fantasies surrounding the idea of rejection letters)   -  but I write for ego, for self-actualization, whatever you want to call it.  I write for emotional, non-financial reasons.   Sure, sure, if I do luck into a &#x27;50 shades of grey&#x27; I want a piece of the action, but in the ordinary case, any payment is symbolic.  If you want to compete for my work (and I&#x27;m not saying you do;  my fiction, so far, is so bad that I&#x27;m not willing to admit to any of it,) then you have to compete on something other than money.<p>Assuming you aren&#x27;t going to assign me an editor who will ride my ass until I finish the goddamn thing[1], the things I will look at are prestige and distribution.  The prestige you give me is largely dependent on how good the other authors you publish are.    Distribution is also an incentive; but you have to convince me that more people will see my work if it goes through you than if I just release it for free online.<p>I mean, I guess the plan is to release an issue #1 with either known-good authors or really good unknowns... but between now and then, I&#x27;d suggest talking up your distribution.<p>[1]If you are willing to do that, I&#x27;m sold.  Sign me up.