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It hasn't changed much from a function point of view since 2010 and their recommendations seems more oriented towards what they want to market rather than what I want to read.
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Some insightful points and I quoted my favorite. Yes, Amazon's rec's are marketing tools and most are paid for indirectly or directly via the rules they choose when showing books.
I was on Baen's bar!!! I think it is still around in some form or another, but yes, things did change after Jim died. How could they not? He was one of a kind. Toni does a good job and has a lot of the old timers helping her, but one of the issues for me is that they can't afford to publish much "new blood." There was a Baen post about it years ago (about the time I left the forum). Basically they generate enough revenue to publish x books per year and because of long-running series, most of that money goes to established authors. Of course, some of us outgrew those series...or the authors morphed them over the years into something not the original...or the authors moved on to different things because we can't all write 44 books in a series!!
Anyway at the time, Toni mentioned that there was generally only room for one, possibly two new authors and that didn't happen every year. (Much depended on submissions and schedules for other authors, etc). What I saw was that one and sometimes none was more common. At that time, Baen's bar had pushed Under Witch Moon up to her desk for "give this a look." I was soooo excited...until I read that post and began to realize that there were MANY of us on that desk waiting to be read and possibly win the lottery and be chosen. I left Under Witch Moon on that desk for 4 years before I pulled it. I doubt it was ever even read just due to lack of time/monies to select and publish any of them. I checked back on the forum now and then and I saw one poor guy who had had three manuscripts on her desk -- none had been read, but she said she had just received the fourth (my numbers may be off--it might have been two and the third--memory is a bit hazy on the exact number.)
All publishers have a pretty set number of books they intend to publish during a given year. They allocate monies for various genres. A recent example is Carina Press put out a call for submissions for "Books with thieves as a main character." In the past they've asked for urban fantasy with shifters at the main and so on. They decide on a "hot category" based on sales (or the phasing of the moon?) and they go after it for a while. (They have more than one category at a time. I noticed the Thief one in particular because I read that type of fiction--ie Patricia Briggs When Demons Walk -- a mix of thief, adventure, romance and fantasy. )
I think Baen will continue to morph. We all have to do that to answer what readers like. Since their model worked in the past, they've tried to stick to it, but that won't last forever. And remember, we change as readers too. Sometimes the old stuff we used to love doesn't have the same magic as we age...
At this time there is probably the most growth opportunity with audio books for those authors who can afford to create them. It's not as crowded a marketplace (but is almost completely controlled by Amazon and they do not share the revenue as generously as they do with ebooks because there is little to no competition) but it is expensive to join!