The following wonderful news is excerpted from a note from Toni Weisskopf, publisher of Baen Books:
Well, it’s time: I can now officially say that we are making the transition to selling ebooks with Amazon on December 15th 2012. (We are also negotiating will all the other platforms, and will announce as soon as possible when we start selling with them.) . . . It does mean prices for our individual ebooks will be going up to meet the rest of the market (but yes, all titles will be DRM free). Individual hardcovers will be $9.99, trade pbs $8.99, and pbs $6.99. As part of the adjustment, we will also be raising ebook royalties to authors by 25% so that they get the benefit of both more sales (we hope) and higher prices.
Me again: That’s December 15. Mark your calendars.
Hi Sharon,
Do you know whether this means Baen will be selling through Amazon (and others) in addition to or instead of selling through their own ebook site?
I hope the answer is “in addition to” because one of the things I liked about Baen was being able to buy once, then download whatever formats I wanted.
Lynn
The Amazon (and other bookstores, as negotiations are completed) deal is in addition to the Baen store. More outlets are good.
I’ll note that Baen is making some changes to how they’ve been doing things with regard to “bundles” and eArcs. eArcs will be available exclusively from Baen until the book is published, whereupon they will be removed from the store.
Bundles…I can’t even begin to explain what’s happening with the bundles, because I never understood bundles in the first place. The one point I do get is that the bundles will only be available until the books in the bundle are published, whereupon the bundle will vanish, and the individual books will be available for sale at full price.
I’m hoping Baen will be posting a letter to all its customers on their website, or emailing them, or…so y’all don’t have to depend on the imperfect understanding of authors 🙂
I agree that more outlets are good (hence the distress at even the hint a favorite might go away). More money for the authors is also good, and will hopefully come out of the expansion of outlets where titles are available. And I’m grateful Baen continues to support DRM-free formats through all these changes.
Thank you for explaining – I’ll keep an eye on Baen’s site for any announcment from them on the subject.
This is great since my son is getting a Kindle for Christmas and I can put Agent of Change on it! Haven’t been able to get him to read my paper backs. Once he reads one, I’ll get him the next one!