Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
Do the non-free ones get pirated? I haven't seen any of the Smashword books pirated anywhere either. They let you have half the book for free, which would suit the try before you buy type downloaders. The ones who just download everything for the sake of having it probably wouldn't miss the second half either.
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I haven't seen any of the non-free Baen offerings pirated, but then, I haven't looked. They probably are, since everything else is, and it's easier because Baen doesn't apply DRM.
But I don't think Baen is concerned. They do the basics I think are required: provide value, price reasonably, and make it easy to buy from them. As mentioned, I think the majority of the market is willing to pay for what they get.
Baen is this generation's equivalent of DAW Books. When the late Donald A. Wollheim founded DAW, his goal was to be a mid-level action/adventure SF and fantasy house. They were a little like Harlequin Romances - if you bought a title from DAW you had a pretty good idea of what you were getting. I knew folks back then who matter of factly got
everything DAW published each month, as they knew DAW published the sort of stuff they liked to read. (And DAW went to some lengths to
keep the price of their PBs at 95 cents for as long as possible. Unfortunately, this sometimes meant cutting books to fit in the 160 page format thay could make and sell profitably at that price.)
When Don died and his daughter Betsy took over the reins, the direction changed and DAW is better known now as a publisher of fantasy "bricks" with feminist sensibilities.
I think Baen has largely filled the gap DAW left, and understands what they are doing and who their market is. You can get subscriptions that will automatically get you
all Baen titles in ebook format each month. I don't know how many of their buyers use that option, but I'd bet on a good number.
(And Ben still pays attention to quality control. I've seen
one odd ebook from Baen - a John Ringo novel included on a bound in CD in one of his hardcovers had an assortment of oddities. Email back and forth confirmed my suspicion: the finished manuscript wasn't available when the CD had to be produced, so what was included was an Advanced Reading Copy - essentially an uncorrected galley proof. I didn't mind. It was actually fun to see John's notes to himself and queries to his editor in the manuscript when it was a work in progress.)
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Dennis