Author Tao Lin is offering shares of his second novel to the public. $2000 will get you 10% of the U.S. royalties and whatever good karma comes with helping an author focus on his work. As of this writing there’s only one share left, so you should get on that if you have a couple grand lying around. I work in publishing, so I don’t, but if I did this would definitely be the kind of thing I would spend my millions on, along with homes for every abandoned kitty in the world.

Not everyone has such a kindly view of Lin’s endeavor though. The NYT Freakonomics blog comments are priceless.

And Lin’s not the first to do this. Didn’t Po Bronson offer one of his books as an IPO?