The ‘Pay What you Want’ model has had some success in the catering and resturant business, but doesn’t transfer well to bookshops. If readers have the option to pay what they want for books, what impact might that have on established writers, new writers, and those who are considering writing as a career?
Let the discussions begin!
Open Book Writers 
It’s probably tempting to write it off straight away. People are people, and if given the choice to pay something or nothing, they’re obviously going to choose to pay nothing – right? That means the seller or the creator gets no revenue and the creative occupations become nothing more than a hobby for people with the time and willingness to create for free.
It’s tempting to think that, but it’s surprising how often this system works. It’s been tried with some success by independent producers in the music industry, and in computer gaming there are a number of prominent examples. The ‘Humble Bundle’ distributors offer packages of games for any price you care to pay – though I believe there’s a minimum floor price in that case, it’s still far less than the traditional model would demand. And digital distributor Steam is looking at introducing (if they haven’t, by now) a Pay What You Want system for game add-ons and customisations in their Workshop section.
The idea’s very appealing, but it’s also scary for publishers (whether literary, gaming or musical) because it introduces a huge level of uncertainty into their predicted numbers. Personally, I think PWYW would work better the more used to it we get: to begin with the appeal of being able to take something for nothing or nearly nothing will probably see that happen a lot – but that’s because we’re used to having things offered to us accompanied by a demand for a specific payment – so we see PWYW as a way to circumvent that demand. When we calm down a little, and start seeing it as simply an equitable, reasonable way for seller and buyer to come to an agreement, I think people would be (they’ve already shown that they are, in fact) willing to be fair.