Quote:
Originally Posted by dsvick
I for one would love to know if this is really the case, is Baen's combination of the free library and webscriptions actually successful? Everyone keeps pointing to them as the bright shining light of how things should be done, but is it really a vialbe model for more than the admittedly niche market Baen is in?
Personally, I fall right into there market, so whether it is successful or not I hope they keep it up.  |
Well, Baen's model is also to get you going in to buy the physical books of authors you discover with the cheap eBooks. They've said as much in Baen's Universe's editorials. The idea is that they see it as a way to improve the overall bottom line by giving you a way to discover new authors with minimal risk to you. By doing so, you are more likely to buy the full price hadcovers/etc from those authors once they've established themselves as worth it in your mind.
It's a pretty clever selling tactic, and while I've pretty much given up on print books unless it is for the long-term collection, they've gotten me into a corner... there are a couple authors that I read now because of their eBooks and I'm left with no option but to go into the store and start buying Baen printed books if I want to read more from the author.