Baen Ebooks is an
e-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...
supplier operated by
Baen Books. It sells e-books for Baen and some other publishers, as well as hosting the
Baen Free Library
The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It ...
. Unlike most e-book suppliers, it does not use
digital rights management
Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures, such as access control technologies, can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. DRM ...
(i.e., copy protection). Purchasers can download the same e-book in
seven different formats (
BBeB,
EPUB
EPUB is an e-book file format that uses the ".epub" file extension. The term is short for ''electronic publication'' and is sometimes stylized as ''ePUB''. EPUB is supported by many e-readers, and compatible software is available for most smart ...
,
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
,
Microsoft Reader Mobipocket,
Rocketbook, and
RTF), even long after the initial purchase. Their range of genres offered is heavy on
science fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
and
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures.
The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...
.
Webscriptions
Until January 2012, Baen sold e-books through Webscriptions, which was established in 1999.
Webscriptions was closely associated with (but apparently legally distinct from)
Baen Books. It was owned and operated by Webwrights, a
Tennessee
Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...
company run by Arnold Bailey. Webwrights also ran Baen Books' website and
Baen's Bar, a web forum for Baen readers and authors. At first, Webscriptions offered only Baen titles; later, a few other publishers started using Webscriptions after seeing Baen use e-books to significantly increase hardcover sales (for example, by providing the
Baen Free Library
The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It ...
, which was launched at much the same time as Webscriptions).
In the strictest sense, ''Webscriptions'' really referred to a subscription service through which customers got four–six Baen books ''per month'' as
e-ARC (digital Advanced Readers Copy) releases.
Each month, four to six as-yet unpublished works are made available for purchase as a group. The books are released incrementally. Three months before their official release date, only the first half of the books are available for download. Two months before their official release, the first three quarters of the books are available. The complete books are available for download a month before they are released in paper form. While the books are only partially available ("Advanced Readers Copy"), the only download format is
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
. However, once the books are complete, they can be downloaded in all the supported
e-book
An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...
formats. When Webscriptions.net was replaced by BaenEbooks.com, these "WebScriptions" continued under the name "Monthly Baen Bundles". One of the other publishers using Baen Ebooks,
Night Shade Books, also sells a monthly bundle. The monthly bundles remained on sale indefinitely. (As of 2013, Baen bundles cannot be purchased once the print books go on sale; all Night Shade bundles are still on sale.)
Baen used Webscriptions for another experiment in online publishing, an online subscription-based
science-fiction
Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, sp ...
magazine, ''
Jim Baen's Universe''; non-subscribers could purchase single copies through Webscriptions.
2012
In January 2012, Baen launched "Baen Ebooks" as a replacement for Webscriptions. Existing customer's accounts and purchases were transferred to the new site.
In December 2012, after making arrangements to sell Baen e-books at vendors such as
Amazon.com, Baen increased prices and changed the way Monthly Bundles worked. Prices now depend on whether or not a book is also available in
paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, also known as wrappers, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, ...
format. Baen Monthly Bundles cannot be purchased after the middle of the preceding month, which is when hard-copy versions of the books usually reach retailers. Older Night Shade bundles are still for sale.
Principles
Baen Ebooks, like its predecessor, does not use
DRM (i.e., copy protection), in accordance with
Jim Baen's belief that DRM "just made it hard for people to read books, the worst mistake a publisher could make."
Eric Flint
Eric Flint (February 6, 1947 – July 17, 2022) was an American author, editor, and e-publisher. The majority of his works are alternate history science fiction, but he also wrote humorous fantasy adventures. His works have been listed on ' ...
, writing soon after Baen's death in 2006, noted that "in his fight against DRM, Jim stood alone as a publisher" and argued that Baen Book's success "demonstrated in practice that all the propaganda
n favor ofDRM is, in addition to everything else, so much hogwash even on the practical level of a publishing house's profits and losses."
Jim Baen also believed in giving away e-book versions of older titles in order to sell newer titles, especially later titles in ongoing series. Because the cost of shipping e-books is essentially zero, it is cheaper for a publisher to give away entire books than to buy advertising, leading Baen to establish the
Baen Free Library
The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 61 e-books as of June 2016 (112 e-books as of December 2008) can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It ...
alongside Webscriptions. As
''Wired'' noted, the Free Library has "no conditions or strings attached ... not even requiring readers to give their e-mail addresses, which must have the marketing department turning green around the gills."
Baen also include with some hardcovers CD-ROMs carrying dozens of the author's earlier books in multiple formats, all DRM-free.
Charles N. Brown, whose ''
Locus'' magazine tracked sales figures, noted in 2001 that "Baen has shown that putting up electronic versions of books doesn't cost you sales. It gains you a larger audience for all of your books. As a result,
aen havedone quite well."
Jim Baen also established a policy of making all Baen e-books free to the
disabled
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physica ...
.
Baen Ebooks and digital identifiers
The
Digital object identifier
A digital object identifier (DOI) is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify various objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). DOIs are an implementation of the Handle System; th ...
(DOI) system would seem ideally suited to e-books, but Arnold Bailey found that Baen's approach to e-books made proper use of DOIs prohibitively expensive: Baen would have had to purchase a separate DOI for each format of each e-book, plus the partial
e-ARC versions. Webscriptions therefore used
stock-keeping units (SKUs) and
ISBN
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase or receive ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.
A different ISBN is assigned to e ...
s, instead. (The DOIs found in some older Baen e-books do not work.)
Supported e-book formats
Baen Ebooks supports seven e-book formats. Purchasers can download an ebook in as many formats as they want, even years after the actual purchase. This list includes a partial list of devices or software which can be used with each format:
References
{{Reflist
External links
Baen Ebookshome page
Book selling websites
Internet properties established in 1999
Organizations established in 1999
Book publishing companies of the United States
Science fiction publishers
Ebook suppliers
1999 establishments in the United States
Baen Books