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Originally Posted by nekokami
I agree that the Baen Free Library model does work particularly well for authors with series, though I think it would also work well for any author with more than, say, 3-5 books. The older books are often out of print anyway, so the author can't get any sales from them, and some authors could probably start trying to sell ebook versions of their out of print inventory on their own, but why get into that mess, if Baen will publicize them-- and sell the newer books?
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It works for any author that has more than one book. It would work for an author that has only one book.
The key to the Baen effort is that you can download and read one or more complete novels by an author on their list, free of charge. You read the books, decide you like a particular author's stuff, and buy the next one when it appears.
Stuff you download but don't buy isn't a loss to Baen or the author, as you wouldn't have bought those titles anyway.
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I've been trying to talk Steven Brust into looking into the Tor-Baen deal, now that it seems to be on again. He's got 10 books in the Vlad Taltos series, plus 5 volumes of the "Kaavren Romances." If he were to give away Jhereg and The Phoenix Guards through the Baen Free Library, and offer the rest of his volumes for sale there, I feel pretty confident that his work would sell quite well in that venue.
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I agree. I'm a big Vlad Taltos fan, and have the recent ones in hardcover.
I'm less of a fan of the Khaavren stuff -- Brust is doing pastiches of Dumas, and while I like Dumas, they don't go down as well as the Taltos books.
I read the Phoenix Guards, and a friend who is also a Brust fan asked how I liked them. I replied the characters were idiots. "Of
course they're idiots!" he replied. "Dumas' characters were idiots, too!"
I thought about it and decided he was right. They were young, with fine tailoring, exquisite manners, and sharp swords. Why did they need brains?
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Dennis