I think one of the implications of ebooks and digital publishing, is that Sci-Fi can afford to greatly decrease its engineering safety-margins. How about more risk taking in the speculation department? Instead of cosmically huge ideas in the far-flung future, how about merely big (but society-changing) ideas in the near future or sideways into an alternate present? (Neal Stephenson's steel launch tower?)
A book never had to stand the test of all-time to be respected and to be profitable, but there are authors who wrote with a goal like this in mind. The price of publishing is going down, and electronic media give us more flexibility and reduced risk with smaller chunks of text combined with rapid feedback from audiences. So how about more frequent writing with more risk taking speculating with greater specificity on the nearer-term future? The cost of getting it wrong isn't so high anymore, and even the best authors do so anyhow.
> how about merely big (but society-changing) ideas in the near future
Isn't that the definition of a techno-thriller? You don't need e-books to be relatively successful in that. You don't even have to go the quasi-military route of Tom Clancy - how about Daemon and Freedom(tm) by Daniel Suarez, or Crichton's Next?
A book never had to stand the test of all-time to be respected and to be profitable, but there are authors who wrote with a goal like this in mind. The price of publishing is going down, and electronic media give us more flexibility and reduced risk with smaller chunks of text combined with rapid feedback from audiences. So how about more frequent writing with more risk taking speculating with greater specificity on the nearer-term future? The cost of getting it wrong isn't so high anymore, and even the best authors do so anyhow.