I've been reading Holly Lisle's watch-me-work novel Talymania, where readers sign up to receive emailed chapters hot from her fingertips. It's not the first time an author has tried a new method of publishing on the internet (think back to the start of the century, and Stephen King's failed e-serial experiment) but most authors aren't willing to spotlight their scruffy first drafts for the world, and with good reason.

Anyone who's ever written a story knows: your first draft is never your best work. While each author has their own personal level of awfulness in their first drafts, an author who pens a perfect story first time out is about as possible as a jug band made of unicorns. This is the reason editors and manuscript assessments exist: because first drafts are almost universally bad. So why is Lisle, a well-seasoned author, signing people up to read hers?

In a word – promotion. As an audience, we love to feel involved with a work of art. Short of allowing readers to dictate where the story goes (which has been attempted several times, even in non-fiction), letting them see the journey from draft to book lets them feel part of the process. The list of people an author will share a first draft with is usually miniscule, so it brings the readers into an exclusive club. They'll talk about it, blog about it, forward the email and introduce her writing to a host of people who've never heard of her. 

 But it's not without a cost. Even though we know this is a warts-and-all raw draft, we still judge her writing based on what we read – especially readers who are not themselves writers. That first impression will stick. We will remember it when the finished book comes out, or if we see another of her books on the shelf. The trouble is, we may not bother with a second.