Baen's Webscriptions turns ten

[rleguillow]

LOVE Baen's, buy books from them all the time. Usually in good sized groups. This is partially because they sell books of the sort that I like, and mostly because of no DRM. I typically finish up an ordering session by downloading my books, then sending an email to Sony - "Hey there, Sony, I just spent $xxx over at Baen's and you wanna know why? NO DRM! You could be making that money too - just drop the DRM. Talk to Apple, they did it for iTunes, and I don't think they are losing money."

Love Baen's, may they grow and prosper.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Tom Swift

Thanks for all the info. I think I get it now. Again, either I am just dense or they could explain it a bit better on the site. It was that 4 books a month blurb that threw me and started getting me confused, as well as the 3/4 stuff only mentioned once.

The reason for the "four books" thing is that you get at least four new books every month. There are generally 6 or 7 books in the "package", but the others are re-issues of books that have been issued before, so if, like me, you buy the package every month, you're getting the four new books.

What I love about Webscriptions is its essentially "random" nature. I've discovered all sorts of new authors that way that I would, in all likelihood, never have come across in any other way.

[Seli]

Originally Posted by HarryT

T..

What I love about Webscriptions is its essentially "random" nature. I've discovered all sorts of new authors that way that I would, in all likelihood, never have come across in any other way.

I agree, just 1 or 2 books in a month that you know you're interested in make it worthwhile to buy the whole package. And so far a large number of the books I got this way (and otherwise would never have bought) have been enjoyable.

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by ChrisDolley

(someone who has two books up at Webscriptions - Resonance in the free library and Shift)

Chris Dolley
Resonance (Baen)
Shift (Baen)
Magical Crimes (Book View Cafe)

Hey Chris! I loved Resonance, and it was an accidental discovery because it was in a Webscription pack I bought for other books. I have since bought Shift and now will have to check Magical Crimes. Do you have any other books planned (with Baen or otherwise)?

[ChrisDolley]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Hey Chris! I loved Resonance, and it was an accidental discovery because it was in a Webscription pack I bought for other books. I have since bought Shift and now will have to check Magical Crimes. Do you have any other books planned (with Baen or otherwise)?

Hi Igorsk,

What excellent taste

I have two projects doing the rounds at the moment. An urban fantasy series, beginning with Medium Dead, an extract of which should appear in Dragon Lords, a fantasy anthology from Book View Cafe in Spring. And a quirky mystery series, beginning with An Unsafe Pair of Hands.

Then there's my true crime memoir, Nous Sommes Anglais, which is going to come out via Book View Cafe later this year. NSA is best described as 'A Year in Provence with Gerald Durrell and Miss Marple.'

Resonance (Baen)
Shift (Baen)
Magical Crimes (Book View Cafe)

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by Skyflyer

But I haven't bought every month of Webscription like some of the really dedicated people here.

Me either, heh. I do have about 20% of the books, at a rough count.

While in theory I'd like to buy the lot to support Baen, I've never had the disposable cash to do anything of the sort.

[Lemurion]

I wish I could support them more - but I was surprised to realize that I've already spent over $700 there.

[Darqref]

urg. I just looked again, and I've got almost every month from sep 1999 on. I'm sure I missed one or two due to "Ive already got all those", but that still adds up to over $1800. and doesn't even count the packages or alternate publishers appearing in the last couple of years.

Wow. Kinda like the time about 20 years ago when I first put my checkbook into a spread sheet to verify where everything was going, and found I'd spent $3k on compact discs.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Me either, heh. I do have about 20% of the books, at a rough count.

While in theory I'd like to buy the lot to support Baen, I've never had the disposable cash to do anything of the sort.

I certainly couldn't afford to buy them all at one fell swoop, but when it's less than £10 a month to buy each month's package, the "pain" is a lot less . What does £10 buy you these days? 4 new books a month seems like an excellent way to spend it, speaking personally. Not too many places where you can buy a book for £2.50.

[greenapple]

Am I the only one who find a good number of their science fiction very hard going? The fantasy novels are fine, but I have a serious problem reading their science fiction. I read excerpts on the website and I couldn't understand what the authors were on about. I guess I'm still stuck in the groove of Asimov's Foundation series.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by greenapple

Am I the only one who find a good number of their science fiction very hard going?

A lot (but not all) of the SF they publish is aimed at a very specific taste (one I don't really share, which is why I don't own more of their books, despite having been in at the beginning).

[nekokami]

I don't find their SF hard to read, but I also don't find much of it all that interesting. (Not a military SF fan.)

I see that Baen finally has more of Heinlein's books available as ebooks. I've never been able to understand the scarcity of the Grand Master's works in digital form.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I see that Baen finally has more of Heinlein's books available as ebooks. I've never been able to understand the scarcity of the Grand Master's works in digital form.

Yes, I really do hope that they publish more. My personal favourite out of Heinlein's "juvenile" books, "Space Cadet", is still not available as an eBook.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by nekokami

I see that Baen finally has more of Heinlein's books available as ebooks.

Yes, have to love them for bringing back some of the past masters - not just Heinlein, but Norton, Brackett, Hamilton...I just wish they'd publish more (and expand to Kuttner, Moore, Simak...). Still, better a handful than nothing at all.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, I really do hope that they publish more. My personal favourite out of Heinlein's "juvenile" books, "Space Cadet", is still not available as an eBook.

My favorite of the juveniles is probably Citizen of the Galaxy, which is also not available in an "authorized" ebook version, though I'm fond of all of them. I grew up reading these books, and still like to pick one up at the end of the day when I want to re-read something familiar.