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Regarding Baen there are 2 very important factors that are not mentioned often, but to me are crucial to their success:
- they sell e-books directly so do not have to pay 50% or so markup to Fictionwise, Connect or whatever e-retailer
This leads to lower prices, higher payouts to authors, but and that's a big but, this is possible because they do not distribute their books directly but through S&S; when Random sold e-books directly and discounted them there was a big outcry from all the retailers (from Amazon, to B&N to ...), so they gave up; other big publishers still sell directly but do not discount...
-most of Baen's books and especially the big money makers (Weber, Ringo, Flint) are part of series, sometimes quite long series, and offering free ebooks directly through the library or indirectly through the included (and freely available online with Baen's permission) cd's brings new readers who otherwise may balk at investing in say 16 previous books in the HH series before buying At All Costs, and who would not really want to start a series with book 17...
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