[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

It wouldn't help them if they did. Baen's model works for Baen. It may not work for another publisher.

For a starter, Baen has lower overhead. They are located in NC, where costs of things like rent are lower. They used to have editorial offices in NYC, but relocated.

So, Baen moved to where it was cheaper, so customers should pay more for non-Baen books because they won't move?

For a second, more of their work is done by contractors.

Other publishers can't hire contractors?

Third, and probably most important, Baen is a niche publisher. They publish mid-level action/adventure SF and Fantasy. They understand their market, and what it likes.

Other publishers can't be bothered to figure out who would actually want to buy their books, and keep their production costs down to encourage those customers to buy more of their books? I should pay more for books because big publishers will publish things nobody wants to buy sometimes? If big publishers were prone to "taking a chance" on experimental or edgy books that might not otherwise see print, I could understand this point. But my experience is that the bigger the company, the *more* mainstream and predictable its offerings. It's the small companies that take chances on books that may not have a large following.

And last, Baen still does the majority of its business in print editions.

Yes, and both the free library & paid ebook collections are supporting that. Other publishers have apparently failed to figure out how to make that work for them.

If paper editions all magically went away tomorrow and only the eBook sales remained, could Baen survive selling only eBooks at their current prices? Frankly, I doubt it.

I agree. And Baen's aware of this. But they're working with *today's* business opportunities, not the ones that might exist in another decade or two. They're selling to customers who want to buy books now, not the ones who will eventually only be buying ebooks.

They big guys like Hachette have different cost structures and business models, and what Baen does is only partially adaptable to them, if at all.

I don't doubt that not all of Baen's practices can scale upward, but every large publisher *should* be looking at Baen and asking themselves, "what parts of their business model can we swipe?"