[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by marvmax

I believe Eric Flint says that in his series of Universe articles. I'm taking his word because Baen seems to be increasing their ePublishing activities. Beside Webscriptions, they now have the Grantville Gazette, and the Universe. I find the Grantvillle Gazette an interesting phenomenon. It seems to have arisen by popular acclaim.

Eric should know, and has no reason to lie about it. Also, Arnold Bailey runs the Webscriptions program for Baen, apparently gets a cut of the take for his services, and is reportedly doing very nicely thank you on it.

Yeah it is. I would think that all publishers should look at Webscriptions and the Free Library as the way to do things.

Oh, it's certainly been noticed. Tor Books had a deal at one point to offer Tor content through Webscriptions. It got derailed by reservations on the part of Tor's parent company revolving around lack of DRM, but is reportedly in discussion again.

As I said I found Baen and their e-books because of a free CD that I got from the Library. I hadn't heard of any of the writers, really. Actually I had read some of the March Upcountry Series by John Ringo, but didn't know it was John Ringo, as in I now look forward to anything Ringo writes.

I was a tad surprised the CD was still in your library copy.

The March series is John Ringo and David Weber. That's another innovation on Baen's part: teaming popular authors with newer ones to collaborate on series. Weber and Ringo (and Ringo has subsequently become a Name himself,) Weber and Linda Evans in the Hell's Gate series, Eric Flint and K. D. Wentworth in the Course of Empire books...

The practice has been around for a while, witness the number of collaborations Andre Norton did with younger writers in her later years, and the sort of collaborative output Mercedes Lackey and Anne McCaffrey are doing. It spreads the Name's time over more books, and gives a leg up to newer authors who can hone their skills and establish their own names through the association.

Baen seems to be institutionalizing the practice in their line. How well it works depends upon the authors involved and how the collaboration is set up. Things can be delayed if one party is ready to go, but stuck waiting for manuscript from the other, and the authors need relatively complimentary styles and outlooks. The "chemistry" has to be there.

That's true of the Webscriptions in general. I read many writers that I would never read others wise, and (here's the kicker for other publishers) I pay for writers now that I wouldn't otherwise. I don't know how Baen distributes the money they get from Webscriptions but I just pluck down my money every month. I almost always have read 3 or 4 of the titles but there are enough new ones that I go ahead and pay for them and read them. I've even read books about vampires, and I can guarantee that those authors would never get any of my money any other way.

Yeah, things like the Free Library make trying a new author a relatively risk free enterprise for the reader. Your investment is your time, and if you get partway through a book and don't like it, it's easier to drop it and try another. You don't have the fact that you paid for it as an incentive to push grimly on.
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Dennis