Quote:
Originally Posted by carld
A significant publisher would be one that carries books that I've heard of by authors that I'm familiar with. I haven't looked at all the publishers that you linked to, but after looking at half a dozen I've yet to find an author that I know. They may be fine publishers of great books, but they're not even of Baen's minor significance in the larger scheme of publishing. And that isn't intended as a knock against them either, they're just small, and as far as I can tell, they don't carry any mainstream sci-fi or fantasy authors in non-drm formats.
As far as I know, Baen remains the only significant publisher of non-drm science-fiction and fantasy. I have to conclude that while I approve of their business model heartily, if it were really as successful as many claim then other larger companies would be doing it too, and they aren't.
I'd be more than happy to see evidence to the contrary.
|
There really isn't anyone else BUT Baen. And the reason is simple. Going DRM free is a leap of faith . You take the risk that that your work will be endlessly copied and passed around. If you are just starting out, your intellectual property isn't worth much and you're not losing sales if that happens anyway .
Once you are an established writer, your IP becomes more valuable, you are much more likely to be "shared" ( to use the preferred euphemism) and when that happens, you are losing sales and money. Then you are not so OK with being passed around.
Its worth noting that despite the success of Baen, the vast majority of well known speculative fiction writers use DRM, thank you very much. Guess the people who write the future aren't so gong ho for the DRM free future