I would like to publish my roommate's book online on his behalf.  The
way we want to structure it is such that the first chapter is free,
but to read the rest, you have to pay.  I envision doing this via
Paypal, but I'd like for the reader to have instant gratification -
i.e., you pay, and you get access to the rest of the book right away,
not after one of us checks our email.

I'd like suggestions on how to do this, as well as an idea about how
to grant the access itself: individual passwords, or what?  Any other
suggestions you think might be helpful (we have minimal web design
experience) would be much appreciated as well.  Thanks!

Well, with internet scripting languages like PHP, ASP, JSP,
CGI-scripts from Perl etc. you can achieve authorization to go to a
certain page (where links to the other chapters of the book are
located), via sessions (this is something that is used in the language
PHP, the same principle should be found in the other languages, but
might have another name.)

Session are a combination of a cookie on the computer of the person
who wants to watch the rest of the book AND small files stored on the
server where the website is hosted. The cookie on the person's
computer contains a very long ID-number, that is compared to the
information in the session file on the server. If these match, the
user is authorised to see the page where the rest of your book is
located. If these do not match, the user is denied access and is
redirected to the page where they can pay for seeing the rest of the
book.

The session can be set, when a person for examples pays by creditcard.
The script can check via an automated system with a company that is
skilled in creditcard verification, whether the creditcard-number is
valid. If this is the case, the payment is made, the session is set
and the user can see the page. I don't have any experience with a
creditcard validation system, but I do know they exist.

This is a very safe system, but needs a proper implementation by
someone that knows about these languages. Since you said you and your
friend don't, you must search for a proper website design company.

I hope this has helped you and your friend.

Much success with the implementation of your project!

Regards,

CyberSpaceStar

As far as I know, PayPal provides this as a standard when you sell
stuff. ou need to create a buy / pay now button (preferably encrypted)
at the PayPal button factory. At the end there is a field named
payment confirmation (or something like that) where the buyer is lead
after a successful payment. This page can contain a link to the .pdf
file containing the book. It's a really very easy solution - and free.
I have used it once when I tried to sell a contract template and it
worked fine.

Note: Since people love free stuff, I suggest you to change the book
filename (once a week is ok), the confirmation page and the link in
the download page, as the link address shall be visible after the
payment process is finished. This could lead in buyers posting the
payment confirmation page or the download link itself in public forums
(of course, anyone can post a free link to the file he / she has
downloaded from your website or attaching the e-book file into e-mail
messages or other public posting websites, but there is no way to
avoid this...)