Drunkard's Walk Forums

Anyone who's a fan of Baen's ebooks should take a quick check of their site. 

Things are going to be changing in a big way by the end of this week.

How things are going to work from now on:

1) Monthly bundles will remain available at their discounted price ($18/bundle) until that month's actual publication date. All older bundles will go away as of 12/15.

2) All already-purchased books will remain available for download. Baen will not change their policies on format availability or DRM.

3) After the publication date, books will be available for individual purchase. Books currently available only in hardcover will cost $9.99, books currently available in MMPB will cost $6.99

4) After the publication date, books will be available for purchase at the same prices from the Amazon Kindle store. Books purchased through Amazon will be subject to Amazon's usual policies regarding licensing, availability, revocability, and DRM.

5) Most items have been removed from the Baen Free Library. "Second Editions" of these books will be released by Baen and through Amazon later in their publishing schedule. These will have some form of added content and will be marketed at their usual prices. At the time of release of the second edition the original version will be restored to the BFL.

6) Third-party bundles sold through Baen but not published by them will be unchanged.
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

I knew something was going to happen when I received their email earlier. Looking at all the changes I have to say I'm not very impressed. All I see is a money grab by trying to "partner" with Amazon and, in my opinion, going against the things that Jim Baen thought about sales. The only thing they appear to still be doing right is the no DRM.
I stopped buying the monthly bundles when the number of repeats became so large that I was buying my third copy of multiple books. With the change in pricing I won't be buying anymore for the foreseeable future. I think $6.99 for an eBook is too large, let alone $9.99 just because the current release is hard back. I'll just read the books I already have (both eBook and "dead tree".) I have more than enough (over 5,000 "dead tree" ones alone) and have been reading more from Project Gutenberg.

So, the books brought from them will have no DRM still? Cool.

Yes. In the end, all we are really going to lose is the ability to buy the backlist bundles at their discount prices.

That said, Amazon is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla. I recommend everyone download their books and make backups just in case.

And if anyone has backups of the Free Library....
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

If I remember correctly, most of the Free Library was included on the CDs that were part of selected hardback books.  They could be shared as long as no money was charged.
Here is a site that has copies: Plytki CD od Baena

I don't think that has the whole of the Free Library, but yeah the CDs let folks put a major chunk of it back together.

Actually, the news that Amazon is getting involved here is both encouraging and depressing. Encouraging because this means that Baen was making enough changes that Amazon noticed. Depressing because Amazon will be trying their very best to strangle it from the inside now.

Apparently the reason for the Free Library hiccup is that its existence prevents Amazon from actually charging for any of the books in it.

Their price-matching guarantee means that anything offered by Baen, Amazon has to match their price - in this case, $0.00.

As stated, Baen will be restoring the Free Library content as soon as they can.
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Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.