Baen CDs at Fifth Imperium

[heustess]

There has been a change at the site of the free Baen CDs, http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/. The CDs are no longer available for reading online. They are still available for download. That might change in the future. Each CD is 600+ MBs, and there are 20 CDs, so that is a lot of data. There is a lot of duplication in the CDs.

Server Date: 2012-12-05 19:55:45

As people have been discovering for the last few days, the contents of this archive site has recently changed.

For ten years now, Baen has seen fit to provide free teaser/sampler CDs with many of its first edition hardbacks. They have been - and still should be - applauded for making much of their material available as no-cost samplers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many, many first-time readers have been swayed into buying Baen books due to having read something from one of the free CDs.

Baen is now on the verge of launching a new ebook distribution deal with an 'unnamed third-party'.

This third-party regularly crawls the web looking for ebooks it markets and, if found, matches their price to the new-found lower price.

Finding it free tends to knock the wind out of the ebook's sales (so to speak).

In a lot of ways, my personal belief is that Baen has now come to the conclusion that the free CDs are an experiment which has run its course.

After trading emails with Toni, I was going to retire the entire site (and may yet do so, depending on further events), but as an experiment, she's agreed to a compromise solution whereby only the directly browseable versions of the CD contents are no longer available.

Deleting those directories broke hundreds of remote links into my site.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience. It is rather nice to have the readable versions directly accessible from the web.

The full CD ISO files are, for the time being, still available, though.

-Joe

[boballab]

There has been a change at the site of the free Baen CDs, http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/. The CDs are no longer available for reading online. They are still available for download. That might change in the future. Each CD is 600+ MBs, and there are 20 CDs, so that is a lot of data. There is a lot of duplication in the CDs.

Server Date: 2012-12-05 19:55:45

As people have been discovering for the last few days, the contents of this archive site has recently changed.

For ten years now, Baen has seen fit to provide free teaser/sampler CDs with many of its first edition hardbacks. They have been - and still should be - applauded for making much of their material available as no-cost samplers. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many, many first-time readers have been swayed into buying Baen books due to having read something from one of the free CDs.

Baen is now on the verge of launching a new ebook distribution deal with an 'unnamed third-party'.

This third-party regularly crawls the web looking for ebooks it markets and, if found, matches their price to the new-found lower price.

Finding it free tends to knock the wind out of the ebook's sales (so to speak).

In a lot of ways, my personal belief is that Baen has now come to the conclusion that the free CDs are an experiment which has run its course.

After trading emails with Toni, I was going to retire the entire site (and may yet do so, depending on further events), but as an experiment, she's agreed to a compromise solution whereby only the directly browseable versions of the CD contents are no longer available.

Deleting those directories broke hundreds of remote links into my site.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience. It is rather nice to have the readable versions directly accessible from the web.

The full CD ISO files are, for the time being, still available, though.

-Joe

I will state my opinion that the un-named third party mentioned by Joe is Amazon. As a member of Baen's Bar the CD's and Baen's Webscription bundles have been speculated to be a sticking point in the negotiations between Baen and Amazon because of Amazon's price matching feature. Bean and Amazon have been in negotiations for Amazon to carry Baen ebooks for a long time and if it is them expect to also see a break through in the ones Baen has with B&N. So on one hand it is sad news but on the other it will expose the Baen Ebooks to a wider audience (A lot of people didn't know you could buy Kindle Ebook versions straight from Baen).

[boballab]

Here is a follow up:

Besides the BaenCD site you also need to download/copy any files you want from the Baen Free Library since there is about to be books removed from there as per Toni Weisskopf the Publisher at Baen:

When we do go live on third party platforms (and it is a when now, not an if), we'll have to make some changes to the Baen Free Library. I suggest everyone backup whatever they've got now and spread the word, as there will be titles we have to take down. We'll be keeping as many as possible and will continue adding new titles as practical.

--Toni

So if you haven't hit up the Free Library recently here is the link and download while you can:
http://www.baen.com/library/

[GBLW]

I will state my opinion that the un-named third party mentioned by Joe is Amazon. As a member of Baen's Bar the CD's and Baen's Webscription bundles have been speculated to be a sticking point in the negotiations between Baen and Amazon because of Amazon's price matching feature. Bean and Amazon have been in negotiations for Amazon to carry Baen ebooks for a long time and if it is them expect to also see a break through in the ones Baen has with B&N. So on one hand it is sad news but on the other it will expose the Baen Ebooks to a wider audience (A lot of people didn't know you could buy Kindle Ebook versions straight from Baen).

Yep, I heard it was Amazon and in my humble opinion I think it means Baen will be losing out - in other words it seems to me like a 'hostile takeover' situation. Soon Baen will no longer be anything at all like it originally was.

Just my opinion. KP

[boballab]

I will state my opinion that the un-named third party mentioned by Joe is Amazon. As a member of Baen's Bar the CD's and Baen's Webscription bundles have been speculated to be a sticking point in the negotiations between Baen and Amazon because of Amazon's price matching feature. Bean and Amazon have been in negotiations for Amazon to carry Baen ebooks for a long time and if it is them expect to also see a break through in the ones Baen has with B&N. So on one hand it is sad news but on the other it will expose the Baen Ebooks to a wider audience (A lot of people didn't know you could buy Kindle Ebook versions straight from Baen).

Yep, I heard it was Amazon and in my humble opinion I think it means Baen will be losing out - in other words it seems to me like a 'hostile takeover' situation. Soon Baen will no longer be anything at all like it originally was.

Just my opinion. KP

Toni has released more information and it actually looks like Baen got more out of the "un-named third party" then the other way around.

First Baen still is letting Joe keep the CD's up you just can't read them anymore on line, you just have to download the zip file of the whole CD.

Second on the Free Library it turns out that most of the books being pulled will return to it. Toni sold that "un-named third party" on what they will sell will be "second versions" and what will be up in the Free Library will be the original first version:

We'll also be restoring as many titles as possible to the BFL. We are preparing Second Editions of many of the works, with additional material, that will be offered for sale. The First Editions without the added material will be in the Free Library. Slowly, slowly it all comes together.

--Toni

............

There will be some reduction in the number of titles offered, and there will be a shakedown period as we are working on those Second Editions, but over the next few months many of our favorites should be restored. At least, that is The Plan. I love the Free Library, too, folks.

--Toni

.............

Oh yes, I’m a huge fan of the BFL, too, for all the obvious, greedy reasons. We’ll be restoring as much as possible, and adding new titles as we can. -- Toni

Early last month Toni already told the Bar that some books would be going away from the Free Library because rights had reverted to the author (or their estate) and the they requested the book/s be pulled. So it looks like that is a victory for Baen.

Third the Baen monthly bundles will continue just with a cutoff date now. Prior to this deal the monthly bundles could still be bought after the publication date, after once the publication date comes the bundle will be removed from the Baenebook site:

Just so; we are trying to avoid that automated process.

In re: discount monthly bundles—one of the results of our negotiations is that we will be able to continue offering these. They will be available only from the Baen site, as will eARCs. But once the books are published in print, they will also go up to third parties as individual titles, and the discount bundles will *poof* disappear. This was the closest I could get to having our cake and eating it too (i.e. making available our titles to the largest possible audience—something our writers want and deserve).

..........

Fourth the Baen Pricing and DRM structure hasn't changed. They will still sell their individual ebooks for $6 and eArc's for $15 and no DRM (including on that un-named third party site). To top it off there is good news for the Baen authors from the deal:

I should also add as part of this process we are taking our ebook royalties and improving the author’s share by 25%.--Toni

So IMHO it looks like the multi-year long wrestling with the bear that Toni and the folks at Baen did has paid off in the terms that are favorable to them. I also happen to think that the "un-named third party" will use (or try to use) Baen as a club on other publishers on their pricing schemes.