Baen Books - Electronic Publishing Strategy

Electronic Publishing Strategy

Initially, the company invested resources in "Baen's Bar", its online community service that provides a forum for customers, authors and editors to interact, beginning as a BBS. In the early 2000s, a blogger wrote: "Like every other publisher, Baen set up a website. But several of his authors and fan friends convinced him to put a chat client on his site. Since he was interested, and since several of those authors (like Jerry Pournelle, former columnist for Byte Magazine, for instance) were very Internet savvy, he did. The chat client grew into an incredibly vibrant community called Baen's Bar."

In recent years, beginning in mid 1999, Baen has emphasized electronic publishing and Internet-focused promotions for its publications. The discussions on Baen's bar convinced him to do so. Baen's electronic strategy is explained exhaustively in a series of "letters" or "essays" called The Prime Palaver by Baen Free Library. "First Librarian" Eric Flint, but in a nutshell, emphasizes distribution of unencrypted digital versions of its works free of Digital Rights Management copy protection schemes through Baen Ebooks (formerly Webscriptions, which was not formally part of Baen Books, but in effect an independent e-publisher). Baen and his successors believe that DRM does more harm than good to a publisher. Consequently, Baen also makes its entire catalog available in multiple formats for downloading and typically prices electronic versions of its books at or below that of paperback editions—and makes a profit doing it. According to essays on Baen's science fiction e-magazine Jim Baen's Universe, also edited by Flint, the strategy is if anything, getting stronger and more fruitful with the passage of time, especially with the advent of e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle, and the Barnes & Noble Nook.