Requiescat in Pace: Jim Baen

JanePublishing News1 Comments

Jim Baen passed away from a stroke last night. For those in the reader world who don’t know Jim Baen, he’s responsible for discovering authors like Lois McMasters Bujold. Would we be the beneficiaries of Miles Vorkosigan if not for Jim Baen? Who knows.

Baen Books was a visionary in the ebook market. Jim offered DRM free ebooks, Advanced Readers Copies of books for a premium price ($15.00 for Wen Spencer’s The Wolf Who Rules), and free books. He had ebook subscriptions whereby you paid $10 per month and could download all of the books released that month. It is said that the books offered free of charge saw an increase in book sales.

David Drake eulogizes Baen beautifully. It’s a huge loss to the publishing community and a huge loss to the ebook community.

Jane

Jane Litte is the founder of Dear Author, a lawyer, and a lover of pencil skirts. She self publishes NA and contemporaries (and publishes with Berkley and Montlake) and spends her downtime reading romances and writing about them. Her TBR pile is much larger than the one shown in the picture and not as pretty. You can reach Jane by email at jane @ dearauthor dot com

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