The Baen of Electronic Publishing

[athelind]

For years now, Baen Books has been thumbing its collective nose at the bulk of the eBook industry (and the protectionist schemes of the entertainment industry in general) by offering the Baen Free Library, a collection of science fiction novels both new and old, offered freely, in a variety of formats.

Despite the conventional "wisdom" that every freely-swapped file is food stolen from the mouths of the children of industry middlemen writers, musicians, and artists, Baen has found that listing a book in the Free Library actually increases its sales, and generally increases thesales of the author's back-list, as well.

Eric Flint discusses this at length on the site, both on the home page and in his irregular "Prime Palaver" columns.

Recently, though, Baen has raised the stakes.

Yesterday, quelonzia and I were wandering through Borders, and found a hardback copy of There Will Be Dragons, by John Ringo. The book itself seemed intriguing enough, but not so intriguing that we wouldn't normally wait for paperback. However, after reading the back cover blurb, we decided we simply had to buy the hardcover:

Warning!

Inside you will find a CD ROM that contains over 40 full-length novels, with no encryptions or other schemes to make you feel dumb and incompetent. You can just click on a title and read it or print it out. It gets worse: there are also pictures, short stories, a wargame, and other tasty items. But be very wary. The publisher did not provide this out of the goodness of his heart, if he even has a heart. He figures you will start reading many of the genuinely first-rate novels provided herein, and discover that you really don't want to continue reading on a computer screen. So what will you do? There are several million words here, so it is pretty likely that you will stop reading, and since the accompanying artwork is very memorable andcan be found on the cover of the associated novel, he thiks it is liktely that you will notice it the next time you see it in a bookstore--and that you will Buy the book! Could there be a more dastardly and nefarious scheme for increasing profits? Just remember: You have been warned.

Comments

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

There's at least 4 CDs in that series IIRC. and they encourage you to spread them about!

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

Thats really quite cool of them to do. ^^

[darkkdragon.livejournal.com]

I ended up getting that book too. The CD was the big sell point for me. Free books on CD, what a 'novel' idea *snicker*

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

This is a wonderful idea. I've always thought books, in particular, would increase in sales if people were more familiar with them. I mean, why does EVERY half-decent fantasy author make it onto the bestseller list? Because they always write in series, that's why! People start collecting them, they buy the first two because the third looked interesting, etc,etc. It only stands to reason that the e-book thing would work the same way.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Baen encourages the authors who write series to put the first book in the series up on the Free Library.

The first hit's always free!!

Seriously, though, that's why Napster and the old MP3.com were really a threat to the recording industry. It wasn't that the "piracy" of songs in their catalog was a threat to their sales (in fact, CD sales were UP during Napster's heyday) -- it was the fact that people were hearing music that wasn't CONTROLLED BY THE BIG LABLES. New bands used Napster and MP3.com to hook up directly with the audience. Word-of-mouth got people to look for a band's work, and if they liked it, they'd buy it -- and that money went to the BANDS, not the REAL pirates who run the industry and own the souls of groups like Metallica.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I might consider this - if my book ends up becoming a series, and if I can get normanrafferty's approval for it - since he owns the intellectual rights to the world I'm using. I like this idea. A lot.