BAEN EBook bundles

[jbcohen]

Another question: As I go through some of the older bundles (the ones I am looking at now are from 2000) I find that many of the books are in the free library. Why would I ever pay for a book that I can get for $0? So many other times I have been puzzling something out where it seems that there is something going on that I do not understand and perhaps that is the problem here. Perhaps Baen will take some selected books and make them available for $0, I notice that a lot of these free books tend to be the first in a series of books. when I started out with the Honor Harringtion series last year the first two books in the series were and still are free. I saw that and I have no problem getting hooked on the first one or two in a series then paying for the remainder since I get a chance to evaluate the author's writting style before I comit my hard earned dollars.

Does Baen put books into their free library after the book has gone out in a bundle such as in the february 2000 bundle there was 1632, which I know I got for $0 some time later?

[Redcard]

I keep eyeing these book bundles, but all of them seem to be in the middle of a series ARGH! Can anyone recommend a good bundle for me that isn't in the midst of something?

Also, does anyone here do a yearly subscription to these things?

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

As I go through some of the older bundles (the ones I am looking at now are from 2000) I find that many of the books are in the free library. Why would I ever pay for a book that I can get for $0?

The old Free Library books were printed, Webscriptioned and released normally, and then at some point the author gave their permission for stuff to be added to the BFL. It's not like Baen has been padding their old bundles with the freebie books as you might have been thinking.

You can see a list of their updates over the years at the main Baen site and many of the titles were added quite some time after the original release.

Originally Posted by Redcard

Can anyone recommend a good bundle for me that isn't in the midst of something?

There's a few single-author bundles which collect entire series/theme sets of stuff. Look for them under "Book Bundles" in the sidebar.

NB: Some of them were former limited-time discount sale bundles which have had their sale pricing expired, so if you're only interested in one or two books, then it's cheaper to buy them separately. Others seem to be perma-bundles with the special pricing as a regular thing.

[jbcohen]

Hay redcard, A lot of times this happends in a bundle so I would recommend anytime you see a bundle that you are interested in look up the books that comprise the bundle in fantasticfiction.co.uk and baencd.thefifthimperium.com. The first is a web site that talks about books series indexed by authors you can use that listing to understand if the books that you are looking at are at the start of a series or in the middle or at the end of the series. The fifth imperium is a place to download what is called an iso file, which is all of the books in that series that you are considering in one big file. You will need software such as 7 zip to take the file appart so that you can read the individual books. First check with the fifth imperium to see if you can get hte books for nothing then with fantastic fiction to see where the books that you are looking at are in the series.

To answer your second question no these bundles are not sold by the year they are sold one by one. Book bundles are a great way to become familiar with a cross section of authors that you would normally not come across. As for me I discovered these bundles some time ago and I have used them to get a chance to encounter a lot of great authors that I would not have otherwise come across such as John Dalmas and Mercedes Lackey. John Dalmas is a great writer and one nees to be careful about Mercedes Lackey sometimes shes great and sometimes shes just so so. and sometimes I can't seem to get started on her books. David Weber is also another great author, I would recommend that you go to the Baen free library and download a copy of his book On Balskic station, I hope I spelled that right.

[bfisher]

Baen is my favourite publisher; they treat their readers with respect.

I normally buy individual books, so usually it doesn't make sense to buy a bundle, as I often already have several of the books in a given bundle.

Sometimes, I do get lucky. I just bought the Sept 2011 bundle. (I was 10 pages into a library copy of David Drake's "Into The Hinterlands" and realized I wanted to have my own copy.) The bundle included the following 7 books for $18.00 - an incredibly sweet deal:

Into the Hinterlands by David Drake and John Lambshead
Rogue by Michael Z. Williamson
The Crystal Variation by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Countdown: M Day by Tom Kratman
Young Flandry by Poul Anderson
Ragnarok by Patrick A. Vanner
The Golden Shield of IBF by Jerry & Sharon Ahern