Is Baen Free Library Legal
The Baen Free Library is an experiment in the field of intellectual property and copyright. It appears that sales of free e-books and other books by the same author, also from another publisher, will increase if the e-version is made available free of charge. [3] I defined two books without perms, so the results are: The Baen Free Library is a digital library from science fiction and fantasy publisher Baen Books, in which 61 e-books can be downloaded for free as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) in various formats without copy protection. [1] It was founded in late 1999 by science fiction author Eric Flint and publisher Jim Baen to determine whether the free availability of books on the Internet encouraged or discouraged the sale of their paper books. [2] But even things that aren`t free are still pretty cheap (most of the time) and everything is available in multiple DRM-free formats. One of the few publishers that make e-books properly. Be careful, Baen loves the model of drug traffickers. The first books in a series are free, but after that, you have to pay. 😛 This is a great way to find new series.
In this article, I`d first like to look at a variant of the idea of using free e-books all the time to increase sales of your other work: making the e-book version of a book free and using it as an advertisement for the print version. Next, let`s look at another freelance writer – Robert J. Crane – who uses the technique of selling books without perms AND he was kind enough to share his sales figures. This section lists letters from readers to Baen`s “first librarian,” Eric Flint, and the responses he made in return about the Free Library and its offerings, but more importantly, they discuss Baen`s experience with offering free titles and continue to discuss topics in electronic publishing in general. Particularly noteworthy are the letters of gratitude from blind and disabled people and the vast geographical demographics of Baen`s experience. Most of the documents, however, are historically interesting “snapshots” of intellectual property disputes in the early days of the Free Library and the evolution of Baen Books` publishing style that offers titles both by download and print. Well, to many of you, this may seem like a strange question. After all, we see free eBooks all the time. People wouldn`t do it if it didn`t work. But the question is still relevant: does it hurt sales? Does it encourage piracy? Do people really care? This site is also legal and Baen is very aware of that.
This is an online repository for the various CDs of the book collections that Baen has published over the years. Amazon does the same. I will allow it because the books are free. In July 2012, I published my first series book in my high fantasy series, in September 2012 my first book [Alone] permafree. Thanks for that, I knew about the free library, but not the CDs. Looks like I know what I`m going to download this weekend. Thus, the evidence (although not hard facts) suggests that using free books/e-books can increase sales. Well, obviously, not everything is free.
It`s a business, and the authors want revenue. What made a difference for me, especially with Amazon UK and international Apple Stores, was having a free book permanently on these sites. I`ve talked about it a lot, but I made my first book Emperor`s Edge (and eventually my first Flash Gold novel) for free on Smashwords about a year ago. I had distributed the gifts through their affiliate sites, and Amazon eventually adjusted the price. What took longer, but ultimately happened, was that Amazon UK (and DE, ES, IT, etc.) also set the price of the eBook for free. That`s when I started seeing sales of my other books in these stores. It was a similar process for iTunes. It took a while for free eBooks to leak and appear in Apple`s international stores, but I now sell books every month in Apple AUD, DKK, GBR, etc. and earn between $1,500 and $2,000/month in overseas sales.
In 2002, Baen also began including CD-ROMs in some hardcovers of the latest hit series titles. They include the complete series of novels before the printed book (for books that were the last in a series), other works by the same author, some works by other authors, and multimedia bonuses.
