Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
Baen went from an also-ran SF publisher to a major SF hardcover and ebook publisher primarily due to the Baen Free Library and their ebook sales policies (they've always done well in MM paperbacks). This is significant in a time when publishers are taking actions they claim are meant to cut costs, such as firing staff, and supposedly having great difficulty making a profit.
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I don't think Baen was ever an also-ran SF publisher. Since its founding by Jim Baen, it's been popular with the military-SF and spacetech-SF audience, and though I think they had some distribution problems early on, they have
long been a widely respected (and profitable) publisher in the SF arena. I've never heard that there was any kind of quantum change associated with their free library and ebooks marketing, though no doubt that contributes to their continued success.
As others have said, they're a small company, small enough that they were able to pick up and move from NYC to North Carolina, just because they wanted to be where it was cheaper and more pleasant to live. So it's very hard to compare what they do to what the big publishers do.