Quote:
Originally Posted by Over
I wonder if they are going to keep these promotions.
One of their ideas is that if people like what they are reading, they will prefer to buy a paper copy instead of reading on screen.
But as ereaders become more and more common, I wonder if that will still be the case.
|
Well, they added a "Donation" button to their free library because enough people *asked* for a way to pay for Free Ebooks they liked. (Kinda validates the idea that *in their market* if you treat people fairly, they'll treat you fairly in return.)
And free samples of ebooks don't have to result just in increased sales of pbooks; nothing prevents customers from buying the ebook edition.
Baen's key insight so far is that they sell "stories", not files. (They have other tricks in their arsenal but that one is the key to their success.) Everything else flows from that idea; that a sale is a sale regardless of whether its print or digital.
Whether they can prosper indefinitely with those practices depends on the customers' behavior and Baen knows better than anybody how their customers behave since they have the sales and download numbers. So far they haven't found reason to modify their practices so they're probably happy with the bottom line.
Basically, they're working on the Honor system.
(In more ways than one.)
