In the space of just a few years, crowdfunding has gone from being an exciting buzzword, a potential gamechanger for this industry or that, to a slightly irritating part of everyday life. While not long ago I’d happily part with £25 to fund my friends’ concept album, I’m starting to resent the frequent raids on my PayPal account for £10 to bail out an acquaintance’s failing magazine, or £5 for a budding writer’s “research trip” to Sri Lanka. There must be some more generous people than me out there, because crowdfunding is still flourishing, in publishing especially. On Kickstarter last year, 261,771 backers pledged £25.7m in the UK alone. Crowdfunding publisher Unbound, which had a Booker nod with The Wake, has just teamed up with Penguin Random House to distribute its books.

A newcomer – Readership – thinks it has something new to offer. This is a venture that proudly puts the reader first. Visitors read up to the first two chapters of a completed manuscript, then vote Yes or No. Thumbs up, and you’re asked to make a donation towards publication. The key is in its simplicity, geared towards online attention spans.

Founder Sam Rennie thinks the publishing process has traditionally been the wrong way round: “The digital world has made [entertainment] more democratic, where audiences are telling you what they want rather than distributors of content telling you ‘These are the choices you have.’” He points towards Netflix researching torrent sites to get a better idea of viewing habits.It’s too early to tell whether Readership will foster any great books, but its ideas are worth hearing, especially the ingenious plan to promote its authors by building an interactive “world of writing” in the computer game Minecraft.