Sennadar Forums

Server Date: 2012-12-05 19:55:45

As people have been discovering for the last few days, the contents of this archive site has recently changed.

For ten years now, Baen has seen fit to provide free teaser/sampler CDs with many of its first edition hardbacks. They have been - and still should be - applauded for making much of their material available as no-cost samplers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many, many first-time readers have been swayed into buying Baen books due to having read something from one of the free CDs.

Baen is now on the verge of launching a new ebook distribution deal with an 'unnamed third-party'.

This third-party regularly crawls the web looking for ebooks it markets and, if found, matches their price to the new-found lower price.

Finding it free tends to knock the wind out of the ebook's sales (so to speak).

In a lot of ways, my personal belief is that Baen has now come to the conclusion that the free CDs are an experiment which has run its course.

After trading emails with Toni, I was going to retire the entire site (and may yet do so, depending on further events), but as an experiment, she's agreed to a compromise solution whereby only the directly browseable versions of the CD contents are no longer available.

Deleting those directories broke hundreds of remote links into my site.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience. It is rather nice to have the readable versions directly accessible from the web.

The full CD ISO files are, for the time being, still available, though.

-Joe

heustess wrote:There has been a change at the site of the free Baen CDs, http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/. The CDs are no longer available for reading online. They are still available for download. That might change in the future. Each CD is 600+ MBs, and there are 20 CDs, so that is a lot of data. There is a lot of duplication in the CDs.

Server Date: 2012-12-05 19:55:45

As people have been discovering for the last few days, the contents of this archive site has recently changed.

For ten years now, Baen has seen fit to provide free teaser/sampler CDs with many of its first edition hardbacks. They have been - and still should be - applauded for making much of their material available as no-cost samplers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many, many first-time readers have been swayed into buying Baen books due to having read something from one of the free CDs.

Baen is now on the verge of launching a new ebook distribution deal with an 'unnamed third-party'.

This third-party regularly crawls the web looking for ebooks it markets and, if found, matches their price to the new-found lower price.

Finding it free tends to knock the wind out of the ebook's sales (so to speak).

In a lot of ways, my personal belief is that Baen has now come to the conclusion that the free CDs are an experiment which has run its course.

After trading emails with Toni, I was going to retire the entire site (and may yet do so, depending on further events), but as an experiment, she's agreed to a compromise solution whereby only the directly browseable versions of the CD contents are no longer available.

Deleting those directories broke hundreds of remote links into my site.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience. It is rather nice to have the readable versions directly accessible from the web.

The full CD ISO files are, for the time being, still available, though.

-Joe

When we do go live on third party platforms (and it is a when now, not an if), we'll have to make some changes to the Baen Free Library. I suggest everyone backup whatever they've got now and spread the word, as there will be titles we have to take down. We'll be keeping as many as possible and will continue adding new titles as practical.

--Toni

boballab wrote:I will state my opinion that the un-named third party mentioned by Joe is Amazon. As a member of Baen's Bar the CD's and Baen's Webscription bundles have been speculated to be a sticking point in the negotiations between Baen and Amazon because of Amazon's price matching feature. Bean and Amazon have been in negotiations for Amazon to carry Baen ebooks for a long time and if it is them expect to also see a break through in the ones Baen has with B&N. So on one hand it is sad news but on the other it will expose the Baen Ebooks to a wider audience (A lot of people didn't know you could buy Kindle Ebook versions straight from Baen).

GBLW wrote:

boballab wrote:I will state my opinion that the un-named third party mentioned by Joe is Amazon. As a member of Baen's Bar the CD's and Baen's Webscription bundles have been speculated to be a sticking point in the negotiations between Baen and Amazon because of Amazon's price matching feature. Bean and Amazon have been in negotiations for Amazon to carry Baen ebooks for a long time and if it is them expect to also see a break through in the ones Baen has with B&N. So on one hand it is sad news but on the other it will expose the Baen Ebooks to a wider audience (A lot of people didn't know you could buy Kindle Ebook versions straight from Baen).

Yep, I heard it was Amazon and in my humble opinion I think it means Baen will be losing out - in other words it seems to me like a 'hostile takeover' situation. Soon Baen will no longer be anything at all like it originally was.

Just my opinion. KP

We'll also be restoring as many titles as possible to the BFL. We are preparing Second Editions of many of the works, with additional material, that will be offered for sale. The First Editions without the added material will be in the Free Library. Slowly, slowly it all comes together.

--Toni

There will be some reduction in the number of titles offered, and there will be a shakedown period as we are working on those Second Editions, but over the next few months many of our favorites should be restored. At least, that is The Plan. I love the Free Library, too, folks.

--Toni

Oh yes, I’m a huge fan of the BFL, too, for all the obvious, greedy reasons. We’ll be restoring as much as possible, and adding new titles as we can. -- Toni

Just so; we are trying to avoid that automated process.

In re: discount monthly bundles—one of the results of our negotiations is that we will be able to continue offering these. They will be available only from the Baen site, as will eARCs. But once the books are published in print, they will also go up to third parties as individual titles, and the discount bundles will *poof* disappear. This was the closest I could get to having our cake and eating it too (i.e. making available our titles to the largest possible audience—something our writers want and deserve).

I should also add as part of this process we are taking our ebook royalties and improving the author’s share by 25%.--Toni