RIP Jim Baen
- From: John Mark Ockerbloom <ockerblo@[redacted]>
- Subject: RIP Jim Baen
- Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:55:59 -0400
From David Rothman's TeleRead blog I get the news that Jim Baen,
founder and owner of Baen books, has died. Besides running a
distinctive science fiction publishing house that brought us
authors like Lois McMaster Bujold (and brought back authors like
James Schmitz) Baen was a pioneer in online publication.
As is reported online, he showed that you could make good money selling
current fiction without wrapping it in reader-hostile DRM
packaging-- and that you could also do well both for yourself and
for readers by strategically giving books away online. (The Baen
Free Library is full of first books from various authors and series,
which have enticed readers to buy their later books, or to sign up for
the fee-based Webscriptions service to be the first to read new stories.)
He will be missed. David's post on Teleread at
http://www.teleread.org/blog/?p=5116
has more, including links to the longer obituary by David Drake at
http://david-drake.com/baen.html
The Baen Free Library can be found at
http://www.baen.com/library/
John Mark Ockerbloom