BAEN EBook bundles

[jbcohen]

I like the March ebook bundle from baen however I do not want to spend the dollars to get half or three-quarters of a book, I would rather wait until the whole book is available via the bundle. At what point can I expect the March bundle to contain the whole books?

Does baen publish series bundles? For example a series bundle for Lary Niven's Man-Kzin series would include all of the volumes published in this series to date.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I like the March ebook bundle from baen however I do not want to spend the dollars to get half or three-quarters of a book, I would rather wait until the whole book is available via the bundle. At what point can I expect the March bundle to contain the whole books?

You misunderstand the way that it works. You pay the money for the bundle. You can download it now when it contains 3/4 of the books; you can re-download it when the whole books are there. You don't have to pay separately for each download. The bundle will normally be "complete" around about the 20th of the month prior to which the bundle is dated, so the March release will generally be fully released around 20th Feb.

[jbcohen]

Does baen publish series bundles? For example a series bundle for Lary Niven's Man-Kzin series would include all of the volumes published in this series to date.

[mewmartigan]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Does baen publish series bundles? For example a series bundle for Lary Niven's Man-Kzin series would include all of the volumes published in this series to date.

I don't believe they have any series available in bundles.

What they do offer is:

- some series in omnibus editions where you get 3 books in one e-book so for a 12 book series, you are only paying for 4 ebooks.

- some series have access to a CD with all the previous books. If you buy the latest Honor Harrington book, you get access to a CD that has the previous 11 books in all sorts of ebook formats. Check out the fifth imperium website to browse the cds.


I don't know if either of these "bundle" options is available for the Man-Kzin series.

[jbcohen]

Great these omnibus editions will work and the CDs will work as well. Where do I go for the omnibus editions? I see in my webscriptions account a file that starts CD_, is that the CD you are talking about, I am opening it now to examine and geeze its taking quite some time.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Great these omnibus editions will work and the CDs will work as well. Where do I go for the omnibus editions? I see in my webscriptions account a file that starts CD_, is that the CD you are talking about, I am opening it now to examine and geeze its taking quite some time.

The CD are usually inserts in hardbound books. The CD images can be downloaded at The Fifth Imperium either as an ISO image to burn to your own CD or as a zip file with directory listings.

[mewmartigan]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Great these omnibus editions will work and the CDs will work as well. Where do I go for the omnibus editions? I see in my webscriptions account a file that starts CD_, is that the CD you are talking about, I am opening it now to examine and geeze its taking quite some time.

The omnibus editions aren't really separated out. For example, Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels come in omnibus editions. You wouldn't know it though without reading the description where it tells you that its 3 books in one....or three thrilling adventures in one book...or however they word it.

[camiller]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I like the March ebook bundle from baen however I do not want to spend the dollars to get half or three-quarters of a book, I would rather wait until the whole book is available via the bundle. At what point can I expect the March bundle to contain the whole books?

Does baen publish series bundles? For example a series bundle for Lary Niven's Man-Kzin series would include all of the volumes published in this series to date.

Looks like the March bundle is complete anyway. Also, when a person buys it they can send a code to another person who can get it free AND send it to yet another person ad-infinitum until someone breaks the chain or interest fizzles out.

March chain is already started here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...n+webscription

[camiller]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

The CD are usually inserts in hardbound books. The CD images can be downloaded at The Fifth Imperium either as an ISO image to burn to your own CD or as a zip file with directory listings.

Or you can just download the format you want for each book individually and save a little bandwidth over downloading each book in many formats.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by camiller

Or you can just download the format you want for each book individually and save a little bandwidth over downloading each book in many formats.

Sure, if all you want is just one or two books on the CD. But if you're looking for a series, it makes *more* sense to download the zipped files which will save a bit of bandwidth (most of the files are text and compress nicely with zip).

[ametzler]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Sure, if all you want is just one or two books on the CD. But if you're looking for a series, it makes *more* sense to download the zipped files which will save a bit of bandwidth (most of the files are text and compress nicely with zip).

Actually none of the e-book formats compress nicely, as the format specifications already integrate compression:

828K ../Miles_Errant.epub 824K Miles_Errant.epub.zip
844K ../Miles_Errant.lit 780K Miles_Errant.lit.zip
1016K ../Miles_Errant.lrf 992K Miles_Errant.lrf.zip
1,1M ../Miles_Errant.prc 920K Miles_Errant.prc.zip
876K ../Miles_Errant.rb 876K Miles_Errant.rb.zip

Out of the provided formats only rtf and htm do compress significantly.

cu andreas

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by ametzler

Actually none of the e-book formats compress nicely, as the format specifications already integrate compression:

Sigh.. Of course you're correct. Epub is just a renamed zip file.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Does baen publish series bundles? For example a series bundle for Lary Niven's Man-Kzin series would include all of the volumes published in this series to date.

Actually, they do:
http://www.baenebooks.com/c-89-book-bundles.aspx

Some are Author bundles, some are series bundles, and some are publisher bundles/grab-bags. They do like to experiment, after all.

Sneaky, aren't they?

[jbcohen]

Excellent discussion all however, I would like to know how to recognize the CD images when I see them in my webscription account. When I go into my webscription account and look in the last Honor Harington novel that I bought called Mission of Honor there is an entry called CD ISO Image (310,984K), is that the CD that I am looking for? I would image that it is since its so big.

[mewmartigan]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

Excellent discussion all however, I would like to know how to recognize the CD images when I see them in my webscription account. When I go into my webscription account and look in the last Honor Harington novel that I bought called Mission of Honor there is an entry called CD ISO Image (310,984K), is that the CD that I am looking for? I would image that it is since its so big.

Yes, that is the CD you are looking for. Unfortunately the ISO file isn't exactly easy to work with. It's an exact copy of the CD including the file system, etc. An ISO is really meant to be downloaded and burned to a CD, which will give you an exact replica of the CD that comes with the hardcover.

Instead, I recommend going to this link and choosing to download the Mission of Honor cd.zip instead of the iso.zip. Mission of Honor looks to be the 4th down on the list. The cd.zip will just give you all the files on the CD instead of the whole structure.

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

This website is approved by Baen and is essentially a storehouse for all the CDs.