I do wonder, though, if there was a $5 or $10 eBook of the nominees with a ballot at the end of it, they could sell it for a limited time on every online bookseller. Then, Worldcon gets its money; it can kick royalties back to the pubs to encourage them to continue; the voting pool is larger, giving more legitimacy to the award; and becoming a voter is as easy as buying and downloading a book.
So, for reasons that may or may not be immediately obvious, this was a question I asked quite directly of my publisher this year: Could Worldcon sell the voters packet at a token price to members only, thus generating some kind of revenue but keeping the work easily accessible for voters? And basically, the answer is no. The way that contracts are structured--not only publishers' contracts with writers but also their contracts with various booksellers--makes this extremely difficult, if not impossible.
On the other hand, while Orbit only included excerpts of its nominated novels, they did discount their nominees significantly (for everyone who bought them as ebooks, not just Worldcon members) in the month leading up to Hugo voting closing. Which I did appreciate.
I'm going to predict that as far as novels go, we're going to see a lot more of publishers only including a sample in the packet, and then discounting the book through regular channels, now Orbit has set that precedent.
And your basic idea of an award voted on by all of the purchasers of a particular ebook compilation is an interesting one, but could not be the Hugos without a tremendous change to the Hugo rules, not to mention its nature and purpose. And anyone who's attended a business meeting of the World Science Fiction Society will tell you how much work even the smallest change is! But it might be an interesting new award, if someone could manage to set it up. (I suspect contractual issues would nix it out of the gate, but there's no reason not to investigate it, if someone wants to.)
Incidentally, let me join in the chorus encouraging anyone who's interested in the Hugos to become a Hugo voter if they can afford it. Yes, even if your taste is radically different from mine!
My dream is that someday, people will be arguing on a thread here about how little I deserved a Hugo nom. I think I'd just gloat from afar as I updated my bio everywhere to say "Hugo Award winner".
I'm not gonna lie, that is very nearly the most fun ever.
Oh, I'm way off topic. I love this story. So much. I'm so glad she won the Campbell.