Quote:
Originally Posted by LeisureSuitLarry
The main thing I didn't see was any kind of free library (ala Baen) or any e-book selling portal (ala Webscription). After reading some of the things that PNH has said about the new site, I didn't really expect them to have anything like that, but I was still a little disappointed. Maybe they're still planning something. I certainly hope so, but I'm not expecting it now.
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I'm not surprised. Email I got a while back from Patrick Neilsen-Hayden, Tor's Editorial Director, indicated they were still looking at options, and the free book emails were not intended to be anything like the Free Library, or an indicator of which way they planned to jump. He
did mention the possibility of simply partnering with Baen and piggy-backing on their free library. It would make sense: Tor CEO Tom Doherty was Baen Books founder Jim Baen's boss when Tom was Publisher at Ace Books and hired Jim to be editor.
They stayed friends and in touch, and Tom is an investor in Baen. They had put together a deal to offer Tor content through Webscriptions and publicly announced it, only to have the plug pulled by Tor's corporate parent because Webscriptions doesn't use DRM. Holtzbrink has changed its mind on DRM, and the deal is theoretically being reviewed by legal and my restart down the road.
I think the problem for Tor in doing this is that they
are a unit of a larger company, including St. Martin's Press and Macmillan among the imprints. My guess is that Holtzbrink is groping for a coherent digital strategy across all imprints, and won't let Tor do something like this independently.
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Dennis