Another thing I wish I had time for is reading and reviewing hard-SF e-books, to help promote quality work and authors who, like us, are not part of the traditional publishing industry.
Instapundit often links to new SF e-books at Amazon, such as today’s link to Robert Sapp’s Lunar Dance, but (unsurprisingly) does not review all the books to which he links. We can certainly attest to the bump in sales one gets from a single Instapundit link, but consider how much more valuable a site with frequent and honest reviews of author-published hard-SF would be to both readers and authors.
Carl and I have discussed a few times creating a “label” or virtual publishing “house” for similar purposes: a group of self-published authors who review each others’ work for quality and (in this case) hard-SF content, and publish under a recognizable label which serves readers as a hall-mark of sorts for new-to-them writers or books. Think Manana Society with an imprint. Like so many good ideas, however, this one has languished for the same lack of time that makes it hard to simply read the new material in the first place.