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• Baen Author Edward M. Lerner profiled Physics Illinois News Go to Page 6 of the PDF. (HTML VERSION)
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• SCIENCE FICTION SANTA FLIES HIGH WITH THE NAVY!
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• BAEN CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF EXCELLENT ADVENTURES
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• SCIENCE FICTION PUBLISHER IS GIVING IT AWAY!
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• Fictionwise’s 2002 eBook Author of the Year
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• Diplomatic Immunity Snippet
  by Lois McMaster Bujold (November 1 2001)

• Why the Baen Books Website Rocks
  by Spider Robinson (April 25, 2001)

• Introducing the Baen Free Library
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• David Weber's Upcoming Books
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• HONOR HARRINGTON CONQUERS 
  THE BESTSELLER LISTS 
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• About David Weber

• Award-winning author butters 
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• Dramatic growth in online book sales 
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Diplomatic Immunity Snippet

Scene One. Aboard a Space Ship...

CHAPTER ONE

In the image above the vid plate, the sperm writhed in elegant, sinuous curves. Its wriggling grew more energetic as the invisible grip of the medical micro-tractor grasped it and guided it to its target, the pearl-like egg: round, lustrous, rich with promise.

"Once more, dear boy, into the breach -- for England, Harry, and Saint George!" Miles murmured encouragingly. "Or at least, for Barrayar, me, and maybe Grandfather Piotr. Ha!" With a last twitch, the sperm vanished within its destined paradise.

"Miles, are you looking at those baby pictures again?" came Ekaterin's voice, amused, as she emerged from their cabin's sybaritic bathroom. She finished winding up her dark hair on the back of her head, secured it, and leaned over his shoulder as he sat in the station chair. "Is that Aral Alexander, or Helen Natalia?"

"Well, Aral Alexander in the making."

"Ah, admiring your sperm again. I see."

"And your excellent egg, my lady." He glanced up at his wife, glorious in a heavy red silk tunic that he'd bought her on Earth, and grinned. The warm clean scent of her skin tickled his nostrils, and he inhaled happily. "Were they not a handsome set of gametes? While they lasted, anyway."

"Yes, and they made beautiful blastocysts. You know, it's a good thing we took this trip. I swear you'd be in there trying to lift the replicator lids to peek, or shaking the poor little things up like Winterfair presents to see how they rattled."

"Well, it's all new to me."

"Your mother told me last Winterfair that as soon as the embryos were safely implanted you'd be acting like you'd invented reproduction. And to think I imagined she was exaggerating!"

He captured her hand and breathed a kiss into its palm. "This, from the lady who sat in the nursery next to the replicator rack all spring to study? Whose assignments all suddenly seemed to take twice as long to complete?"

"Which, of course, had nothing to do with her lord popping in twice an hour to ask how she was going on?" The hand, released, traced his chin in a very flattering fashion. Miles considered proposing that they forgo the rather dull luncheon company in the ship's passenger lounge, order in room service, get undressed again, and go back to bed for the rest of the watch. Ekaterin didn't seem to regard anything about their journey as boring, though.

This galactic honeymoon was belated, but perhaps better so, Miles thought. Their marriage had had an awkward enough commencement; it was as well that their settling-in had included a quiet period of domestic routine. But in retrospect, the first anniversary of that memorable, difficult, mid-winter wedding had seemed to arrive in about fifteen subjective minutes.

They had long agreed they would celebrate the date by starting the children in their uterine replicators. The debate had never been about when, just how many. He still thought his suggestion of doing them all at once had an admirable efficiency. He'd never been serious about twelve; he'd just figured to start with that proposition, and fall back to six. His mother, his aunt, and what seemed every other female of his acquaintance had all mobilized to explain to him that he was insane, but Ekaterin had merely smiled. They'd settled on two, to begin with, Aral Alexander and Helen Natalia. A double portion of wonder, terror, and delight.

At the edge of the vid recording, Baby's First Cell Division was interrupted by a red blinking message light. Miles frowned faintly. They were three jumps out from Solar space, in the deep interstellar on a sub-light-speed run between wormholes expected to take four full days. En route to Tau Ceti, where they would make orbital transfer to a ship bound for Escobar, and there to yet another that would thread the jump route past Sergyar and Komarr to home. He wasn't exactly expecting any vid calls here. "Receive," he intoned.

Aral Alexander in potentia vanished, to be replaced by the head and shoulders of the Tau Cetan passenger liner's captain. Miles and Ekaterin had dined at his table some two or three times on this leg of their tour. The man favored Miles with a tense smile and nod. "Lord Vorkosigan."

"Yes, Captain? What can I do for you?"

"A ship identifying itself as a Barrayaran Imperial courier has hailed us and is requesting permission to match velocities and lock on. Apparently, they have an urgent message for you."

Miles's brows rose, and his stomach sank. This was not, in his experience, the way the Imperium delivered good news. On his shoulder, Ekaterin's hand tightened. "Certainly, Captain. Put them through."

The captain's dark Tau Cetan features vanished, to be replaced after a moment by a man in Barrayaran Imperial undress greens with lieutenant's tabs and Sector IV pins on his collar. Visions surged through Miles's mind of the Emperor assassinated, Vorkosigan House burned to the ground with the replicators inside, or, even more hideously likely, his father suffering a fatal stroke -- he dreaded the day some stiff-faced messenger would begin by addressing him, Count Vorkosigan, sir?

The lieutenant saluted him. "Lord Auditor Vorkosigan? I'm Lieutenant Smolyani of the courier ship Kestrel. I have a message to hand-deliver to you, recorded under the Emperor's personal seal, after which I am ordered to take you aboard."

"We're not at war, are we? Nobody's died?"

Lieutenant Smolyani ducked his head. "Not so far as I've heard, sir." Miles's heart rate eased; behind him, Ekaterin let out her breath. The lieutenant went on, "But apparently, a Komarran trade fleet has been impounded at some place called Graf Station, Union of Free Habitats. It's listed as an independent system, out near the edge of Sector V. My clear-code flight orders are to take you there with all safe speed, and to wait on your convenience thereafter." He smiled a bit grimly. "I hope it's not a war, sir, because they only seem to be sending us."

"Impounded? Not quarantined?"

"I gather it's some sort of legal entanglement, sir."

I smell diplomacy. Miles grimaced. "Well, no doubt the sealed message will make it more plain. Bring it to me, and I'll take a look while we get packed up."

"Yes, sir. The Kestrel will be locking on in just a few minutes."

"Very good, Lieutenant." Miles cut the com.

"We?" said Ekaterin in a quiet tone.

Miles hesitated. Not a quarantine, the lieutenant had said. Not, apparently, a shooting war either. Or not yet, anyway. On the other hand, he couldn't imagine Emperor Gregor interrupting his long-delayed honeymoon for something trivial. "I'd better see what Gregor has to say, first."

She dropped a kiss on the top of his head, and said simply, "Right."

Miles raised his personal wrist com to his lips, and murmured, "Armsman Roic -- on duty, to my cabin, now."

The data disk with the Imperial seal upon it that the lieutenant handed to Miles a short time later was marked Personal, not Secret. Miles sent Roic, his bodyguard-cum-batman, and Smolyani off to sort and stow luggage, but motioned Ekaterin to stay. He slipped the disk into the secured player that the lieutenant had also brought, set it on the cabin's bedside table, and keyed it to life. He sat back on the edge of the bed beside her, conscious of the warmth and solidity of her body. For the sake of her worried eyes, he took her hand in a reassuring grip.

Emperor Gregor Vorbarra's familiar features appeared, lean, dark, reserved. Miles read profound irritation in the subtle tightening of his lips.

"I'm sorry to interrupt your honeymoon, Miles," Gregor began. "But if this has caught up with you, you haven't changed your itinerary. So you're on your way home now in any case."

Not too sorry, then.

"It's my good luck and your bad that you happen to be the man physically closest to this mess. Briefly, one of our Komarr-based trade fleets put in at a deep space facility out near Sector V, for re-supply and cargo transfer. One -- or more, the reports are unclear -- of the officers from its Barrayaran military escort either deserted, or was kidnapped. Or was murdered -- the reports are unclear about that, too. The patrol the fleet commander sent to retrieve him ran into trouble with the locals. Shots -- I phrase this advisedly -- shots were fired, equipment and structures were damaged, people on both sides were apparently seriously injured. No other deaths reported yet, but that may have changed by the time you get this, God help us.

"The problem -- or one of them, anyway -- is that we're getting a significantly different version of the chain of events from the local ImpSec observer on the Graf Station side of the conflict than we're getting from our fleet commander. Yet more Barrayaran personnel are now reported either held hostage, or arrested, depending on which version one is to believe. Charges filed, fines and expenses mounting, and the local response has been to lock down all ships currently in dock until the muddle is resolved to their satisfaction. The Komarran cargo masters are now screaming back to us over the heads of their Barrayaran escort, with yet a third spin on events. For your, ah, delectation, all the original reports we've received so far from all the viewpoints are appended to this message. Enjoy." Gregor grimaced in a way that made Miles twitch.

"Just to add to the delicacy of the problem, the fleet in question is about fifty percent Toscane-owned." Gregor's new wife Empress Laisa was a Toscane heiress and a Komarran by birth, a political marriage of enormous importance to the peace of the fragile union of planets that was the Imperium. "The problem of how to satisfy my in-laws while simultaneously presenting the appearance of Imperial even-handedness to all their Komarran commercial rivals -- I leave to your ingenuity." Gregor's thin smile said it all.

"You know the drill. I request and require you, as my Voice, to get yourself to Graf Station with all safe speed and sort out the situation before it deteriorates further. Pry all my subjects out of the hands of the locals, and get the fleet back on its way. Without starting a war, if you please, or breaking my Imperial budget.

"And, critically, find out who's lying. If it's the ImpSec observer, that's a problem to bounce to their chain of command. If it's the fleet commander -- who is Admiral Eugin Vorpatril, by the way -- it becomes… very much my problem."

Or rather, very much the problem of Gregor's proxy, his Emperor's Voice, his Imperial Auditor. Namely Miles. Miles considered the interesting pitfalls inherent in attempting, without back up, far from home, to arrest the ranking military officer out of the middle of his long-standing and possibly personally loyal command. A Vorpatril, too, scion of a Barrayaran aristocratic clan of far-flung and important political connections within the Council of Counts. Miles's own aunt and cousin were Vorpatrils. Oh, thank you, Gregor.

The Emperor continued, "In matters rather closer to Barrayar, something has stirred up the Cetagandans around Rho Ceta. No need to go into the peculiar details here, but I would appreciate it if you would settle this impoundment crisis as swiftly and efficiently as you can. If the Rho Cetan business becomes any more peculiar, I'll want you safely home. The communications lag between Barrayar and Sector V is going to be too long to for me to breathe over your shoulder, but some occasional status or progress reports from you would be a nice touch, if you don't mind." Gregor's voice did not change to convey irony. It didn't need to. Miles snorted. "Good luck," Gregor concluded. The image on the viewer returned to a mute display of the Imperial Seal. Miles reached forward and keyed it off. The detailed reports, he could study once he was en route.

He? Or we?

—End Chapter one—

Ta, Lois.

Why the Baen Books Website Rocks

Spider Robinson

[© 2001 by Spider Robinson; all rights reserved]

======= 

I love www.baen.com for three basic reasons: 

1. I'm a reader.
2. I'm a writer. 
3. I'm an islander. 

Let me tackle those in reverse order. You already KNOW what it's like to be a reader. 

3. I'M AN ISLANDER -- I live on an island twenty minutes off the coast of Canada by ferry, with a permanent population of around 3,000. It has countless virtues I will not bore you with, and a few drawbacks. One of the drawbacks is, there are so few of us, so far from the nearest big city, that neither the cable-TV people nor the phone people are in any roaring hurry to hook us up for high-speed Internet access. BUT-- damnable Catch-22!--they keep saying they're working on it, and keep claiming they're nearly done. Every month for the last year and half, they've assured us high-speed service will be available in another month. ("Two at the outside.")

Well, my computer has a 28.8kbps modem. And I can't bring myself to go out and buy a 56kbps job, if I'm only going to scrap it when I get ADSL access in a matter of months. So here I am in my island paradise, accessing the World Wide Wait at 28.8. Pogo-sticking my way down the Information Highway.

Consequently I am a BIG fan of web pages that don't waste my precious bandwidth--which is to say, my time. I like sites which are NOT top-heavy with dancing chickens (animated graphics, java routines, Quicktime movies, popcorn windows, etc) that take forever to download, supply no useful information...and not uncommonly crash my archaic (vintage 1995) browser.

I also highly approve of websites so intelligently designed that they can be navigated quickly and easily, without any useless transition pages or other wasted steps. At my download speed, each screenful of information represents at least a minute stolen from my life.

WWW.BAEN.COM shines on both counts. Naturally there must be SOME graphics: there are these book covers they'd like you to see. But baen.com's graphics are well thumbnailed, and no bigger than they need to be--unlike some sites that insist on giving you a ten-trillion-color version twice the size of the largest monitor available that runs half a megabyte in filesize. Even pages with a LOT of book covers on them load reasonably quickly--even at 28.8--at the Baen Books site.

And whoever designed it is an artist, completely at ease in that peculiar medium. It's one of those rare sites where everything makes sense, everything is clear, everything works, and nothing wastes your time just because that was the simplest solution to a design dilemma. Every time you find yourself wishing a certain option or path or button or link had been provided for you, you notice that it has been. It's what Jef Raskin, who dreamed up the Macintosh, calls "humane interface." [see his current book of that name]

There's enough interesting material lying around the site to keep even an ASDL -equipped user happily occupied for quite a while...but at the same time, some poor shmo in Canada with a beaver-powered modem can get in, get what he wants, and get out, WITHOUT tying up the family phone line all day.

You CAN get there from here. With minimal huhu. If you think a site like that is easy to design, I invite you to try it yourself.

Bring a lunch.

I know well how difficult it is, in my own line of work, to conduct my own readers painlessly through a long and complex interaction with me...and make it look easy. And I've fiddled with website design just enough to know it makes fiction look easy. So when I wander the baen.com site and do NOT find myself lost in labyrinths, hunting the elusive snipe, I have perhaps a better idea than the average civilian of how much effort must have gone into that effortlessness.

Which leads me to the SECOND major reason I love www.baen.com:

2. I'M A WRITER -- which is to say, chronically in a state of fiscal crisis. In this sci-fi year 2001, the principal difference between a science fiction writer and a large pepperoni pizza is that the pizza can feed a family of four.

Considered from this perspective ONLY, the primary purpose of the Baen Books website is to help me make my mortgage payments. Its two essential tasks, as far as the Writer Me is concerned, are to tell the new reader about my new book and why it's so terrific, and to help the longtime fan locate and buy my backlist titles whenever a loved one has a birthday.

But immediately, before the home page has even finished drawing itself on my monitor, I run into a sharp antinomy: The site exists in cyberspace. And there are growing indications that one day soon cyberspace may, if some of its stupider LANarchist philosophers have their way, turn out to be what destroyed the publishing industry....and forgot to put anything viable in its place.

As I write this, cowardly twits are taking advantage of the anonymity afforded by the Internet to pirate my work and that of my colleagues, and post it in various places where it can conveniently be stolen by others of no moral character. I'm not inconsolably sorry to lose the twit market...but if those sophomoric solons manage to scatter enough free copies of my stuff around, eventually even decent people will be sorely tempted to take one. (See section 1 below)

(And let me just parenthetically dispose of the bullshit analogy these masked "philosophers" love so dearly: the pathetic myth that what they do has anything in common with what a library does. A library PAYS FOR the books, and makes a VERY LIMITED number of copies accessible for free TO PEOPLE WHO CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY BOOKS. A pirate book site makes INFINITE stolen copies available, ONLY to people who COULD have afforded to pay a writer the pittance she charges for her work. Finally, every year since I moved to Canada I have received--just before tax-time!--a cheque from the Public Lending Rights Commission, compensating me for any hypothetical loss of sales due to libraries. I don't believe there IS any such loss, and I voted against the creation of the PLR...but (at the personal advice of Robert A. Heinlein) I tend to shut up and yield to majority will when it puts bread on the table. Some years I make as much from the PLR as I do from royalties--and the sum is always increasing. Who knows? One day America too could become this progressive. End of digression.)

So a certain ambivalence arises in the writer's reaction to the Internet. Yes, I would like my work to have a presence on the Internet. Yes, I'd even like to use the Internet's magic ability to offer the potential reader some free samples of what I do.

But I'd also like to approach the whole business with caution. I don't want to give away the store; I only have the one. In particular, I'd like to accumulate as much accurate data as I possibly can, before committing myself.

And as of March 2001, the only publisher I can see that appears to be experimenting rationally with cyberspace yet is Baen Books. There are visionaries around these days who suggest that we may, and should, evolve to a so-called paperless world--that one day soon we'll all be reading "books" that consist only of pixels on a handheld electronic device, and the senseless slaughter of trees will be greatly curtailed. I have my doubts...but I also have a strong inclination, acquired the hard way back in the Sixties, NOT to dismiss a visionary without hard evidence.

I must admit it might be nice to get rid of some of the incredible waste presently built into the publishing industry, which must print and ship 50,000 copies in hopes of selling maybe 25,000. And I can't deny that authors might find it pleasant to have an ACCURATE, up-to-the-minute accounting of exactly how many copies have in fact been sold...WITHOUT having to mentally subtract some unknown arbitrary quantity of "reserves against returns."

The tempting argument goes as follows: if a publishing company did not have to commission the murder of distant arboreals and the processing of their corpses into paper, then pay to have that stained with exquisite precision, collated, bound, packaged, advertised, and shipped across a large continent in numbers known to be greater than actually necessary--all the while using MORE paper and postage to keep the reviewers, bookstores and author apprised of what they're doing--they might just be able to offer you a book of mine at a price so low, it simply wouldn't be worth the time and trouble of even a pirate with no pride to steal the damn thing. Furthermore, a higher proportion of that price might end up reaching, of all people, ME.

Who knows? It might well work out that way, some day. Or the attempt might end disastrously. The results are far from in; indeed the race has barely begun.

But what's needed is crystal clear: research and experimentation. More and better data. And if there is another publisher o fn the planet attempting an experiment REMOTELY as interesting, as intelligent, as forward-thinking--or as courageous--as the Webscription program or the Baen Free Library, I sure haven't heard about it.

No sense my summarizing these two schemes here: they're both too complex and too intelligently designed to lend themselves to summary. Let Baen Books tell you about them in detail:  

"Baen Webscriptions FAQ"
Eric Flint's "Introducing the Baen Free Library"

It's breathtaking when you think about it. A thousand pundits are debating, theorizing, philosophizing--and there's Jim Baen, right out where he's usually found: out at the cutting edge, DOING it. The cyberbarbarians are banging at the gates of publishing--and there's Jim Baen going out to negotiate, like the Pope going out to have a little chin-wag with Attilla.

The man not only has the courage of his convictions (rare enough in publishing), he even has the courage of his QUESTIONS.

I don't mean to put down all the other sf publishers--and CERTAINLY not the two or three who currently publish books of mine! But because Jim Baen is a person rather than a corporation or conglomerate, HIS publishing company is in a unique position to adopt the attitude typical of a good surgeon: "I dunno; let's operate and find out." This is the guy who (back in the Eighties) experimented with the concept of a quarterly paperback bookazine not once but twice, at two different publishing houses, just because dammit, it seemed like an idea that ought to work. The resulting DESTINIES and NEW DESTINIES paperbacks are today coveted collector's items--far more enduring than most sf magazines ever got to be.

He also bailed out without a backward glance the moment the data conclusively proved the bookazine concept WASN'T working economically. If this "electronic book" stuff turns out to be as much a kind of Tulip Mania as the dot-com madness was, if the market for it just isn't there no matter what we "experts" think, Jim Baen will be the first to know it, FOR SURE, and cut his--and my - -losses. I would rather share a gamble with him than with any giant international entertainment conglomerate I can think of offhand.

So far the Baen Free Library and the Webscriptions program are tentative, carefully limited, a couple of cautious toes in the water. If Eric Flint is as correct as I would dearly love him to be, in his thoughtful essay on the Baen site--if most citizens of cyberspace, given a rational choice, WOULD in fact prefer to be honest--then Baen Books has done a sensible thing in going out to meet them halfway and open negotiations. If more cynical suspicions are correct, and the "electronic book" turns out to be the eight-track tape of publishing or worse, it can all be undone before too much damage is suffered either by Baen Books or by its authors.

And finally, the THIRD reason I like the www.baen.com website:

1. I'M A READER--a hopeless junkie, a hardcore mainline addict, one of those pathetic wretches you sometimes see squatting on a curb unwrapping old newspaper from a dead fish to get to the Continued On Page B-14. Because the first book I ever read, at age 6, was Heinlein's ROCKETSHIP GALILEO, my principal jones is for science fiction (with mystery a close second)...but I'm not too proud to admit that during times of scarcity I will read ANYTHING, even serious literature.

And when the Hunger is on me, I'm just like everybody else: I want tons of good stuff to read--and I want to pay just as little as possible for it. Right now, WITHOUT waiting a year for the paperback edition to come out.

Sure, this often conflicts with the needs and desires of the Writer Me...but Reader Me doesn't care. (He can't afford to: Writer Me doesn't give him enough money to buy hardcover books.)

And of all the websites for science fiction publishers I've sampled so far, the Baen site offers the most goodies for the reader. There are other good ones, but at this time www.baen.com is clearly the best. Excellent free fiction and plenty of it, changing constantly--tons of interesting data--hotlinks galore - -and one small but sweet feature I've seen nowhere else yet: you can EFFORTLESSLY arrange to have copy delivered in whatever font or font size you find most pleasant to read onscreen. As a reader whose 50th birthday lies behind him, and who has been wearing trifocals long enough to not find them a pain in the ass anymore, I appreciate that feature a great deal; I hope the idea catches on.

Oh, and one other little feature that I found has an oddly powerful appeal for me. This whole idea Jim Baen dreamed up of having folks all hang around together and chat in a bar....well, it's certainly a very interesting notion. I wonder if it could be adapted to fiction, somehow...

--HOWE SOUND, BRITISH COLUMBIA 16 MARCH, 2001

Introducing the Baen Free Library

Eric Flint

Baen Books is now making available -- for free -- a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online -- no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for  an extremely simple, name & email only, registration.) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed.)

Why are we doing this? Well, for two reasons.

The first is what you might call a "matter of principle." This all started as a byproduct of an online "virtual brawl" I got into with a number of people, some of them professional SF authors, over the issue of online piracy of copyrighted works and what to do about it.

There was a school of thought, which seemed to be picking up steam, that the way to handle the problem was with handcuffs and brass knucks. Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign against piracy! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences!

Alles in ordnung!

***

I, ah, disagreed. Rather vociferously and belligerently, in fact. And I can be a vociferous and belligerent fellow. My own opinion, summarized briefly, is as follows:

1. Online piracy -- while it is definitely illegal and immoral -- is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance. We're talking brats stealing chewing gum, here, not the Barbary Pirates.

2. Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc.

3. Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market -- especially the kind of extreme measures being advocated by some people -- is far worse than the disease. As a widespread phenomenon rather than a nuisance, piracy occurs when artificial restrictions in the market jack up prices beyond what people think are reasonable. The "regulation-enforcement-more regulation" strategy is a bottomless pit which continually recreates (on a larger scale) the problem it supposedly solves. And that commercial effect is often compounded by the more general damage done to social and political freedom.

In the course of this debate, I mentioned it to my publisher Jim Baen. He more or less virtually snorted and expressed the opinion that if one of his authors -- how about you, Eric? -- were willing to put up a book for free online that the resulting publicity would more than offset any losses the author might suffer.

The minute he made the proposal, I realized he was right. After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And -- hey, whaddaya know? -- over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!

And so I volunteered my first novel, Mother of Demons, to prove the case. And the next day Mother of Demons went up online, offered to the public for free.

Sure enough, within a day, I received at least half a dozen messages (some posted in public forums, others by private email) from people who told me that, based on hearing about the episode and checking out Mother of Demons, they either had or intended to buy the book. In one or two cases, this was a "gesture of solidarity." But in most instances, it was because people preferred to read something they liked in a print version and weren't worried about the small cost -- once they saw, through sampling it online, that it was a novel they enjoyed. (Mother of Demons is a $5.99 paperback, available in most bookstores. Yes, that a plug.)

***

Then, after thinking the whole issue through a bit more, I realized that by posting Mother of Demons I was just making a gesture. Gestures are fine, but policies are better.

So, the next day, I discussed the matter with Jim again and it turned out he felt exactly the same way. So I proposed turning the Mother of Demons tour-de-force into an ongoing project. Immediately, David Drake was brought into the discussion and the three of us refined the idea and modified it here and there. And then Dave Weber heard about it, and Dave Freer, and... voila.

The Baen Free Library was born.

This will be a place where any author can, at their own personal discretion, put up online for free any book published by Baen that they so desire. There is absolutely no "pressure" involved. The choice is entirely up to the authors, and that is true on all levels:

-- participate, or not, as they choose;

-- put up whatever book they choose;

-- for as long as they choose.

***

The only "restrictions" we'll be placing is simply that we will encourage authors to put up the first novel or novels in an ongoing popular series, where possible. And we will ask authors who are interested not to volunteer more than, at most, five or six novels or collections at any one time.

The reason for the first provision is obvious -- to generate more public interest in an ongoing series. I'll have more to say about that in a moment. The reason for the second provision is that one of the things we hope the Baen Free Library will do is make it easier for a broader audience to become familiar with less well known authors. Burying the one or two novels which a new or midlist author might have under a mountain of Big Name backlist titles would work against that. And there's no reason to do so, anyway, because anyone can get a pretty good idea of whether they like a given author after reading a few of his or her books.

Jim has asked me to co-ordinate the project and I have agreed. After a humorous exchange on my appropriate title -- I tried to hold out for... never mind -- we settled on "Eric Flint, First Librarian." That will allow me to give the periodic "newsletter and remarks" which I will toss into the hopper the splendid title of "Prime Palaver," a pun which is just too good to pass up. (I'd apologize to the ghost of Isaac Asimov, except I think he'd get a chuckle out of it.)

***

Earlier, I mentioned "two reasons" we were doing this, and stated that the first was what you might call a demonstration of principle. What's the second?

Common sense, applied to the practical reality of commercial publishing. Or, if you prefer, the care and feeding of authors and publishers. Or, if you insist on a single word, profit.

I will make no bones about it (and Jim, were he writing this, would be gleefully sucking out the marrow). We expect this Baen Free Library to make us money by selling books.

How? As I said above, for the same reason that any kind of book distribution which provides free copies to people has always, throughout the history of publishing, eventually rebounded to the benefit of the author.

Take, for instance, the phenomenon of people lending books to their friends -- a phenomenon which absolutely dwarfs, by several orders of magnitude, online piracy of copyrighted books.

What's happened here? Has the author "lost a sale?"

Well... yeah, in the short run -- assuming, of course, that said person would have bought the book if he couldn't borrow it. Sure. Instead of buying a copy of the author's book, the Wretched Scoundrel Borrower (with the Lender as his Accomplice) has "cheated" the author. Read his work for free! Without paying for it!

The same thing happens when someone checks a book out of a public library -- a "transaction" which, again, dwarfs by several orders of magnitude all forms of online piracy. The author only collects royalties once, when the library purchases a copy. Thereafter...

Robbed again! And again, and again!

Yet... yet...

I don't know any author, other than a few who are -- to speak bluntly -- cretins, who hears about people lending his or her books to their friends, or checking them out of a library, with anything other than pleasure. Because they understand full well that, in the long run, what maintains and (especially) expands a writer's audience base is that mysterious magic we call: word of mouth.

Word of mouth, unlike paid advertising, comes free to the author -- and it's ten times more effective than any kind of paid advertising, because it's the one form of promotion which people usually trust.

That being so, an author can hardly complain -- since the author paid nothing for it either. And it is that word of mouth, percolating through the reading public down a million little channels, which is what really puts the food on an author's table. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Think about it. How many people lend a book to a friend with the words: "You oughta read this! It's really terrible!"

How many people who read a book they like which they obtained from a public library never mention it to anyone? As a rule, in my experience, people who frequently borrow books from libraries are bibliophiles. And bibliophiles, in my experience, usually can't refrain from talking about books they like.

And, just as important -- perhaps most important of all -- free books are the way an audience is built in the first place. How many people who are low on cash and for that reason depend on libraries or personal loans later rise on the economic ladder and then buy books by the very authors they came to love when they were borrowing books?

Practically every reader, that's who. Most readers of science fiction and fantasy develop that interest as teenagers, mainly from libraries. That was certainly true of me. As a teenager, I couldn't afford to buy the dozen or so Robert Heinlein novels I read in libraries. Nor could I afford the six-volume Lensmen series by "Doc" Smith. Nor could I afford any of the authors I became familiar with in those days: Arthur Clarke, James H. Schmitz, you name it.

Did they "lose sales?" In the long run, not hardly. Because in the decades which followed, I bought all of their books -- and usually, in fact, bought them over and over again to replace old copies which had gotten too worn and frayed. I just bought another copy of Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, in fact, because the one I had was getting too long in the tooth. I think that's the third copy of that novel I've purchased, over the course of my life. I'm not sure. Might be the fourth. I first read that book when I was fourteen years old -- forty years ago, now -- checked out from my high school library.

***

In short, rather than worrying about online piracy -- much less tying ourselves and society into knots trying to shackle everything -- it just makes more sense, from a commercial as well as principled point of view -- to "steal from the stealers."

Don't bother robbing me, twit. I will cheerfully put up the stuff for free myself. Because I am quite confident that any "losses" I sustain will be more than made up for by the expansion in the size of my audience.

For me to worry about piracy would be like a singer in a piano bar worrying that someone might be taping the performance in order to produce a pirate recording. Just like they did to Maria Callas!

Sheesh. Best thing that could happen to me...

That assumes, of course, that the writer in question is producing good books. "Good," at least, in the opinion of enough readers. That is not always true, of course. But, frankly, a mediocre writer really doesn't have to worry about piracy anyway.

***

What about the future? people ask. Even if reading off a screen is not today as competitive as reading paper, what about the future when it will be? By which time advances in technology might make piracy so easy and ubiquitous that the income of authors really gets jeopardized?

My answer is:

Who knows?

I'm not worried about it, however, basically for two reasons.

The first is a simple truth which Jim Baen is fond of pointing out: most people would rather be honest than dishonest.

He's absolutely right about that. One of the things about the online debate over e-piracy that particularly galled me was the blithe assumption by some of my opponents that the human race is a pack of slavering would-be thieves held (barely) in check by the fear of prison sentences.

Oh, hogwash.

Sure, sure -- if presented with a real "Devil's bargain," most people will at least be tempted. Eternal life... a million dollars found lying in the woods...

Heh. Many fine stories have been written on the subject! But how many people, in the real world, are going to be tempted to steal a few bucks?

Some, yes -- precious few of whom, I suspect, read much of anything. But the truth is that most people are no more tempted to steal a few dollars than they are to spend their lunch hour panhandling for money on the streets. Partly because they don't need to, but mostly because it's beneath their dignity and self-respect.

The only time that mass scale petty thievery becomes a problem is when the perception spreads, among broad layers of the population, that a given product is priced artificially high due to monopolistic practices and/or draconian legislation designed to protect those practices. But so long as the "gap" between the price of a legal product and a stolen one remains both small and, in the eyes of most people, a legitimate cost rather than gouging, 99% of them will prefer the legal product.

Jim Baen is quite confident that, as technology changes the way books are produced and sold, he can figure out ways to keep that "gap" reasonable -- and thus make money for himself and his authors in the process, by using the new technology rather than screaming about it. Certainly Baen's Webscriptions, where you can buy a month's offerings "bundled" at a price per title of around two bucks has demonstrated his sincerity in this.

(But he's just a publisher, of course, so what does he know? On the other hand... I'm generally inclined to have confidence in someone who is prepared to put his money where his mouth is. Instead of demanding that the taxpayers' money be put into building more prisons.)

***

The reason I'm not worried about the future is because of another simple truth. One which is even simpler, in fact -- and yet seems to get constantly overlooked in the ruckus over online piracy and what (if anything) to do about it. To wit:

Nobody has yet come up with any technology -- nor is it on the horizon -- which could possibly replace authors as the producers of fiction. Nor has anyone suggested that there is any likelihood of the market for that product drying up.

The only issue, therefore, is simply the means by which authors get paid for their work.

That's a different kettle of fish entirely from a "threat" to the livelihood of authors. Some writers out there, imitating Chicken Little, seem to think they are on the verge of suffering the fate of buggy whip makers. But that analogy is ridiculous. Buggy whip makers went out of business because someone else invented something which eliminated the demand for buggy whips -- not because Henry Ford figured out a way to steal the payroll of the buggy whip factory.

Is anyone eliminating the demand for fiction? Nope.

Has anyone invented a gadget which can write fiction? Nope.

All that is happening, as the technological conditions under which commercial fiction writing takes place continue to change, is that everyone is wrestling with the impact that might have on the way in which writers get paid. That's it. So why all the panic? Especially, why the hysterical calls for draconian regulation of new technology -- which, leaving aside the damage to society itself, is far more likely to hurt writers than to help them?

The future can't be foretold. But, whatever happens, so long as writers are essential to the process of producing fiction -- along with editors, publishers, proofreaders (if you think a computer can proofread, you're nuts) and all the other people whose work is needed for it -- they will get paid. Because they have, as a class if not as individuals, a monopoly on the product. Far easier to figure out new ways of generating income -- as we hope to do with the Baen Free Library -- than to tie ourselves and society as a whole into knots. Which are likely to be Gordian Knots, to boot.

Okay. I will climb down from the soapbox. Herewith, the Baen Free Library. Enjoy yourselves!

Eric Flint
First Librarian
October 11, 2000

 PS. One final note. Users of the Library are welcome -- encouraged, in fact -- to send in their comments and questions, on any subject which is relevant to the Library and its contents. Write to me at: Librarian@baen.com

At periodic intervals (don't ask me how often, 'cause I don't know yet) these will be e-published in the Library under "Prime Palaver." Along with my answers and my own remarks. Um. Also, probably, along with my own shameless promotional pitches...

(Oh, stop grousing. You know how to fast forward through commercials, don't you? If you don't, it's past time you learned.)

HONOR HARRINGTON CONQUERS 
THE BESTSELLER LISTS

March 3,2000

Baen Books is happy to announce the appearance of David Weber's ASHES OF VICTORY at number nine on the Publishers Weekly hardcover fiction bestsellers list. It is also number one on the Barnes and Noble SF list, #12 on the New York Times list, #6 on the Amazon hardcover fiction list and #8 on the Wall Street Journal List. A firestorm of orders has resulted in 50,000 units in print over three printings, all done before the March 1 release.

Ashes of Victory is the 9th in the Honor Harrington series, and the 21st book done by David Weber, all published by Baen Books. His first novel, a collaboration with friend Steve White was published in 1990, his first solo in 1991. His books have always taken off running, and the appearance of Ashes on the bestseller lists is the result of ten years of increasing sales, increasing word of mouth in the SF community, and especially as a result of focus on the www.baen.com website.

While Weber has toured for previous Honor Harrington releases and has attended numerous science fiction conventions as a guest, in this instance the author is at home with a broken wrist (he is so prolific, the rumor is that it's a stress fracture as a result of so much intense typing).

However, Ashes, and previous titles in the series, have been featured on www.baen.com, Baen Books' popular website. The chapters have been released, one by one, for several months before the book was available in stores. 

Echoes of Honor, 8th in the series, was so intensely sought by the readers, that the site was actually hacked into to obtain chapters before they were officially available, and then shared across the Internet. We were besieged by readers on the www.baen.com Weber discussion group begging, pleading, and willing to do almost anything just to get one more sneak preview.

So Baen created a "WebScription" program. Subscribers pay $10 per month to buy a month's worth of books in installments. We are trying to recreate the old-time Golden Age of SF magazines' experience on the Internet, complete with the excitement inherent in haunting the newsstands. Authors have welcomed the new service, both for the promotional value and because royalties (per sale) are about double that of on-paper versions.

The Honor Harrington series, inspired by the C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower books and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin novels, and based loosely on the life of Nelson, have been popular from the start. On Basilisk Station (1993) introduced the doughty female commander. The series started out as paperback originals, but public demand has Baen re-issuing the earlier volumes in hardcover. On Basilisk Station's latest printing is a $1.99 limited edition paperback, released in October 1998 in conjunction with the hardcover release of Echoes of Honor.

About David Weber

A lifetime military history buff, David Weber has carried his interest in history into his fiction. In the Honor Harrington series (Ashes of Victory, March 2000, is number 9 in the series), the spirit of both C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower and history's Admiral Nelson are evident.

Previously the owner of a small advertising and public relations agency, Weber now writes SF full time. While he is best known for his spirited, modern-minded space operas, he is also developing a fantasy series featuring an unwilling paladin, the first two titles of which are Oath of Swords and The War God's Own. Weber's first published novels grew out of his work as a war game designer for the Task Force game Starfire. With collaborator Steve White, Weber has written three novels set in that universe: Insurrection, Crusade and In Death Ground. A sequel to the latter is in the works. Other solo novels by Weber include the three novels of the "Dahak" series, Path of the Fury and most recently The Apocalypse Troll, set in the near future and in which the author destroys much of the Eastern seaboard.

Weber makes his home in Greenville, South Carolina, with his wife Sharon, and what can only be described as a passle of dogs.

Award-winning author
butters up mass-market
book sales

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY – February 10, 2000

Take a hyperactive hero who's beaten life, death, bureaucracy, intrigue and countless enemies, but is helpless when it comes to the woman of his dreams, throw in hundreds of butter-spewing bugs, some high court intrigue, political backstabbing and the odd distraction or two and you still won't have a novel as compelling as Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign.

A Civil Campaign, soon to be released as a mass-market paperback, is already a winner for Bujold, publishers Baen Books and the thousands of old and new fans of the Miles Vorkosigan series. A Civil Campaign spent three weeks on the New York Times' hardcover fiction extended bestseller list and has won an internet website romance readers' award (the Pearl) and a romance magazine's award (the Sapphire). It has also been nominated for this year's Minnesota Book Award in the Popular Fiction category.

"The hardcover was a blow-out success," publisher Jim Baen says. "This was hugely helped by BarBuzz – the early release of initial chapters on Baen's Internet site, ‘Baen's Bar', and the continuing discussion of the book by Bar members.

"A Civil Campaign had a preliminary Amazon.com placement of #7, which was one ahead of Stephen King's latest in the same month."

Not that accolades are anything new for Bujold, a Hugo, Nebula and Locus award-winning author with 14 novels in print in 16 languages and more than one million book sales since her first three novels were published by Baen in 1986.

A Civil Campaign is the 9th novel about Bujold's smaller-than-life but not-just-another-stereotypical hero, Miles Vorkosigan. While the book contains the usual suspects – and Bujold's trademark combination of action, rich characterization, adventure and moral triumph – it introduces a whole new cast…butter bugs. Hordes of brown insects, genetically engineered to sport the Vorkosigan family crest, whose regurgitated vomit is set to transform the culinary world – and totally destroy any chance Miles has for romantic success.

The butter bugs are the primary ingredient in what Baen suggests is the highpoint of the book: a farcical dinner-party infested with butter bugs – both on and off the menu.

"I think it's the funniest and most engaging scene in science fiction ever," Baen says. "It absolutely affirms Lois' place as an extraordinary writer of boundary-breaking fiction.

"This is comedy, drama, romance, fantasy and science fiction all rolled up into one."

The butter bug subplot is a natural outcome of Bujold's lifelong fascination with insects.

"The sequence has a number of sources, some going back quite a way," she says.

"In college, my biology advisor was an insect toxicologist who raised cockroaches in his lab for scientific experiments. Strangely, the animal rights folks never hassled him...

"The most unusual strain he had was one that, when one sprinkled roach powder into their little plastic cages, stood up on their hind legs around the edge to keep their front four feet out of the poison."

Bujold was also very interested in wildlife and close-up photography, and insects were among her favorite subjects.

"I did a photo shoot in his lab as an exercise for my scientific photography course, and later had a fascinating time doing close-up work on a biology study tour of east Africa.

"A few years ago…I received an invitation to write a short story. In kicking around ideas for it I got to thinking back over those wonderful old Robert Sheckley comedy short stories from the 1950s involving down-on-their-luck spacers and assorted live alien cargo.

"I wasn't able to think up an idea short enough for a 4000-word story, but I put the ideas together with Mark Vorkosigan, the entrepreneur of the family, and the seed, or perhaps I should say egg, grew into the butter bug subplot for A Civil Campaign."

The butter bugs have also generated a new addition to the Baen family: Vorkosibug handpuppets:

 http://www.softwear-tnt.com/bugpuppet.html

 which will be distributed to major account buyers.

"It's amusing. I think they're cute," Bujold says, although it's not the first time her characters or stories have come to life outside the pages of her books.

"With respect to human babies, three Miles and one Ivan have been named after the books' characters, so far, that I know of," Bujold says.

"Lots and lots of pets also have Vorkosigan names, cats including the euphonious Alys VorCATril, and a few dogs.

"People send me pictures and artwork. People write songs and poetry about my characters and my stories, develop Vorkosigan universe recipes, and make costumes based on my tales. They use quotations from my books at weddings. I even have an experimental robot named after me that was developed at the Colorado School of Mines.'

Bujold is a 50-year-old mother of two, who was born in Ohio, moving to Minnesota in 1995.

She says writing A Civil Campaign was the same as her other books: "Very exciting to start, a long slog through the middle as I wrestle with the multitude of possibilities, an almost painful drive to some sort of artistic completion, and then an hysterical rush down to an exhilarating finish.

"Proof-reading till my eyeballs counter-rotate. I end every book punch-drunk. Then there is the long, frustrating wait for the publication process to grind through and then, at last! The book is read by real readers, and I can finally find out just what it is I've done."

Bujold says she is not sure how she can top the butter bug dinner party scene in A Civil Campaign: "I think I'll have to go sideways." She is currently working on a non-Vorkosigan world story.

Bujold has been a dedicated science fiction reader and a creative writer since childhood. She says it is an easy career to love – although, like any self-employment, requires personal commitment and fiscal discipline.

"I wake up, roll over, shift the cat, pick up my notebook from the bedside table, and I'm at work. (Well, there is a foray to the kitchen for coffee in there somewhere.)

"It's very nice on those cold winter mornings, compared to shoveling snow and fighting rush hour traffic. The flexible time has been vital for raising kids; I never have to worry about getting time off from a boss to take care of their assorted needs."

Bujold says she enjoys the reader feedback and fan mail, although answering it all "can cut into the precious writing time and energy".

"One of my all-time favorite fan letters was one of my early ones, from a lady in Toronto back in 1991," she says.

"She wrote: "A few months ago, when I was reading Shards of Honor and hardly wanting to put it down, I took the book to the bank with me while I was doing the banking for the business where I manage the office.

"Allow me to add that I am not normally very scatter-brained or oblivious, but I do like to focus on what I read. So I was reading Shards of Honor while waiting in line, and eventually got to the teller to do the necessary banking. She said she could not give me change, as the robber had taken all her money. "What robber?" I asked. "The one who just held us up at gun-point," she explained.

"It turned out that while I had been engrossed in reading, a masked gunman had come in, robbed the bank, and made his escape, and I never noticed a thing. All I can say is, it must have been a very quiet robbery."

A Civil Campaign is to be released as a mass-market paperback in September.

For more information contact:
Jim Baen ph: 718-548-3100, email jimbaen@msn.com
Baen Books
5678 Riverdale Avenue,
Bronx, NY 10471

WebScriptions!
WebScriptions!
WebScriptions!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New York, NY - January 1, 2000


Baen Books ( http://www.baen.com/ ) announces a brand new concept in Internet-based book distribution:

WebScriptions!

For $10/month TOTAL, beginning three months before the paper version reaches bookstores, "Webscribers" gain access to four complete
books, (Most months one of those four paper releases will be hardcover, and usually the four will consist of Baen's entire frontlist offerings for the month in question.)

Baen is currently the only major publisher of Science Fiction to release complete books on-line before bound publication and the only "real" publisher to share production savings from internet publication with consumers: Ten Bucks for four books that are shortly to arrive in bookstores from coast to coast. WebScribers see them first!

Such a deal…. Here's how it works:

For a single $10 payment Webscribers gain access to a site dedicated to Baen 's Frontlist for a particular month. Two weeks before the official month of publication the complete text of the four books will have been
posted at that site.

But wait: Let's start at the beginning.

* Three months prior to bookstore distribution the first half of all four
titles will be posted on the site.

* One month after that the next quarter will arrive.

* One month after that – about two weeks before the books start to arrive in the stores – THE FINAL INSTALLMENT arrives
and all four books are available in their complete form, exactly as they will appear in the printed version. (Prior to posting of the final installment Webscribers will have been reading the "bound galley" version, which Webscribers say just adds to the fun.)

WEBSCRIBERS READ THEM FIRST!

Ok, that's the deal. Now a few clarifications and further points which may be of interest.

1. WebScriptions does NOT require subscribers to purchase every month offered. Purchasers of an individual month will receive access to that month's complete books whether other months are purchased or not. (We may include partials of months not purchased on the same site with the completed months, but that is strictly a promotional issue.)

2. Some readers of this release may wonder if we are sharing our production cost savings with authors as well as with consumers.

Answer: Yes. Authors' royalties are approximately doubled.


3. Are we really including our best authors in this $2.50/book deal??

Answer: We include just about EVERYBODY; that's the point. But our first year will include offerings by:

Lois McMaster Bujold * David Drake
Eric Flint * Mercedes Lackey
David Weber * James P. Hogan
and others.

4. To see how it works, check out

http://www.WebScription.net/

where a free sample, David Weber's On Basilisk Station, is available for
download. Note that this title is Book One of the spectacularly successful Honor Harrington series. (We also plan in the near future to offer an additional free sample for those who are willing to fill out a survey and receive WebScription mailings.)

5. Need more info? WebScriptions FAQ:

http://www.baen.com/ws_faq.htm

6. Still dubious? Here's another first: we asked for volunteers among our "Beta Version" Webscribers to "share their experience."

Here are the email addresses of 90 volunteers.

http://www.baen.com/testimonial.htm

How will they respond?
We're kind of wondering about that ourselves!

What's the point of this incremental approach, rather than just publishing the entire text for each title all at once?

Answer: Simple: We are trying to recreate the old-time Golden Age of SF magazines experience on the Internet, complete with the excitement inherent in haunting the newstands waiting waiting waiting for "The Next Ish." And of course while they are waiting Webscribers can soothe their addiction by hanging out at Baen's Bar

(go to http://bar.baen.com/~Bar/ )

and and joining in the on-line discussions of the titles.

Baen Publishing Enterprises
5678 Riverdale Ave. Suite 104
Riverdale, NY 10471
Phone 718-549-3100
FAX 718-548-3102

Dramatic growth in
online book sales

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, NY - January 27, 2000


An American science-fiction publisher releasing complete books online before they hit the bookstores is bidding to become the latest Internet success story.

Baen Books (http://www.baen.com) has been rushed by people signing up for its WebScriptions service, where readers pay $10 for an online package of four new-release books by major science fiction authors including David Weber, Eric Flint, Mercedes Lackey, Lois McMaster Bujold, James P. Hogan and David Drake.

CEO Jim Baen says sales of the company's fledging service doubled in December.

"We launched WebScriptions last September "in Beta", with virtually no promotion, as a service to Baen.Com habitues. Rather to our surprise over half the people who spend time on our bulletin board have plunked down their 10 bucks a month from day one: within a few weeks we had over 500 "Webscribers", and that with no promotion whatsoever except for talking among ourselves," Baen said.

"In December we emailed the 2000 people who had, over time, let us drop a cookie on their hard drive -- our very first use of this ability -- and our subscription base instantly doubled. So it was basically word-of-mouth, with the word being spread by the community of committed Baen readers who frequent our webboard."

Baen says one reason for the popularity of the service is its great value --$2.50 per book -- and another is the sense of community and "realtime" involvement; subscribers get to start reading the novels three months before they are released to bookstores,  plus they get to talk about them ("Endlessly," Baen jokes) on the Baen.com bulletin board, which is called The Bar. (Habitues of course refer to themselves as "Bar Flies").

"The books are available in installments. Let's say you want to buy our new June releases. For $10 you get to read the first half of these books in March, the next quarter in April and the final installment in May, about two weeks before they are paper-published."

"In effect, subscribers get to read the bound galley version of the books until the final installment comes out. And they tell us that one of the reasons they like it is they get to see any early mistakes and pick up on any changes the author makes to the final version."

Baen says WebScriptions represents a return to the days when fans waited anxiously for the next installment in the science fiction story.

"We are trying to recreate the old-time Golden Age of SF magazines' experience on the Internet, complete with the excitement inherent in haunting the newstands waiting, waiting, waiting."

The online book service was established in response to reader demands, after Baen first started releasing chapters and then partial chapters ("snippets") from forthcoming books on its webboard.

"We were besieged with readers begging, pleading and willing to do almost anything just to get one more sneak preview of the latest in their favorite series, for example from Eric Flint or David Weber," Baen said.

"They'd be getting this copy still warm from the authors' word processor, long before the books were finished, and they kept wanting more and more and more."

"A lady lawyer even hauled me up before the Baen bar for a kangaroo trial for cruel and unusual snippeting. We settled out of court with WebScriptions."

Baen says that Webscribers claim that Webscribing actually increases the number of physical Baen books that they buy. About 80% want "hardcopies" of the titles they would have bought anyway, while they are also made aware of and so have to buy good many titles that might otherwise have escaped their attention.

"WebScriptions are popular with readers outside the US as well, as they often have to wait longer for the books to go on public sale and then pay more for them. We've got subscribers from a range of countries, including Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Sweden, the Philippines and Denmark."

Baen's authors have also welcomed the new service, both for the promotional value and because royalties (per sale) are about double that of on-paper versions of their books.

John Ringo, whose first Baen novel goes online in July as part of the October WebScriptions bundle (Baen is very enthusiastic about A Hymn Before Battle -- it will be the mass-market lead for the month) says he reads almost as much as he writes "and in my opinion it's the best deal since the invention of the paperback".

"Readers get four new release books a month for just $10," Ringo said.

"And you get to pick and choose which months you want to buy. The whole book is released online before it ever hits the stores. And before it gets finished editing. So you get to point out all my mistakes..."

Baen's webmaster Arnold Bailey says the potential for the online book service to expand is significant.

"We can now keep a book in print for as long as one could care to," Bailey said. "We get hundreds of messages from people begging for copies of this or that out of print book. In future, we might just refer them to WebScriptions.

"It might seem new now, but I'll bet that the day will come when an author will be insulted if he is not included in an WebScriptions package."

Jim Baen says while WebScriptions have proved to be a huge success, webboard subscribers continue to beg for sneak previews.

"Eventually we have to say 'no', but we have a lot of fun getting to that point.

"And do note that we aren't here to be fair or satisfy before the book-buying act; we want to drive our readers nuts. We want them to thank us for letting them spend their money. We like them to be hungry for a new book to come out." Baen claims he is joking about this part.

More seriously, Baen says the success of WebScriptions demonstrates yet again the potential of the Internet to open up new personal and professional opportunities, although he says he's not sure "it's legal to actually make money in e-publishing".

"Working in an infant industry is weird. Hardcopy publishing is about as mature as an industry gets, and it seems like every good idea has been used about to death. But with this e-publishing stuff, good ideas just litter the street."

For more information contact:
Jim Baen ph: 718-548-3100, email jimbaen@msn.com
Baen Books
5678 Riverdale Avenue,
Bronx, NY 10471

Internet success story
for Georgia author

A hopeful author logs onto an Internet chat group, has a difference of
opinion with a major book publisher and winds up signing not one, but five book contracts. A fairytale? No, pure science fiction.

Thirty-six year old Georgian and former paratrooper John Ringo
is married with two young children and a day job as a Quality
Control Database Manager at a Jackson County mill. His fairytale
pathway to publishing success started when he logged onto the
Baen Books website and chat board (http://www.baen.com).

Ringo's first novel, "A Hymn Before Battle", will be published by
Baen Books later this year. Baen has also picked up his second
book, and arranged a collaboration with leading sci fi author David Weber.

Ringo says he joined the chat board 'Baen's Bar' expecting "just
another chatboard like millions of others".

"They're like neighborhood bars, some good, most rowdy.
Most of them filled with obnoxious teenagers with nothing better to do than cruise and pick fights.

"But…I found something very, very different. Imagine if you
wandered into a bar in a strange neighborhood and all the other
customers immediately greeted you like a long lost friend who had
just wandered back in."

The aspiring author initially made no mention of his interest in writing.

"I listened to the discussions and began participating in them
avidly…Everyone on the bar spoke a language I had forgotten in
the years as a 'grownup'. Everyone got the jokes! There were more
highly intelligent and perceptive people than I had ever seen
gathered in one place. And they all liked to 'chat'. I had,
finally, found a home."

Ringo's first manuscript was rejected, about the time he had a
difference of opinion online with company CEO Jim Baen.

"I called him 'crazy' and noted that I had to be polite, because
there was a book on the slush pile, that heap of unsolicited
manuscripts that any publisher has to wade through...He joked
about it briefly and it was forgotten. Just another friendly exchange.

"A week later I got my rejection notice. By then I knew a little
about the 'Baen Crew' and recognized it as remarkable coincidence."

Jim Baen had not seen the manuscript and suggested Ringo send it
to him as an email attachment.

"He e-mailed me back and told me, in two paragraphs, the reason
it had been rejected and what my two greatest weaknesses were as
a writer. He also told me the way to fix them.

"But he kept reading it. And then I got an e-mail saying he was
on Chapter 19 and that 'we might just have a book here'."

"A Hymn Before Battle" hits the bookstores in October, but will be
published first on the world wide web.

"Baen has a tremendous online subscription service called
WebScriptions. I read nearly as much as I write and in my
opinion it's the best deal since the invention of the paperback.

"Readers get four new release books a month for
just $10," Ringo said. "And you get to pick and choose which
months you want to buy."

"'A Hymn Before Battle' will be in the October WebScriptions bundle,
which means readers will get the first half online in July, then
the next quarter in August and the final installment in September.
Along with three other books and all for only $10.

"The whole book is released online before it ever hits the
stores. And before it gets finished editing. So you get to
point out all my mistakes..."

Ringo continues to play an active part in the online Baen community.

"Next week I will begin writing full-time, writing for my keep so
to speak.

"I think you could say that Baen's Bar has changed my life."

For more information contact:
John Ringo  email:johnringo@mindspring.com
Jim Baen  email:jimbaen@msn.com
Baen Books
5678 Riverdale Avenue # 104,
Bronx, NY 10471

John Ringo's Story

For more information contact:
John Ringo email:johnringo@mindspring.com
Jim Baen
Baen Books
5678 Riverdale Avenue # 104,
Bronx, NY 10471


John Ringo's story in his own words:

In November of 1998, shortly after the death of my father who had been the only person to date to read my manuscript, I sent a (really lousy) book off to Baen Publishing. Their website had a submission guideline which I followed fairly closely. Then I got to work on "Book Two" because the submission guidelines indicated it would be six to nine months before I would hear back.

Sometime in February of 1999 I was back on the Baen site just tooling around. I had found the sample chapters section and "read the stacks", in the meantime ordering a few books from the Amazon links. Then I finally clicked on the icon for "Baen's Bar".

It was, more or less, what I expected. Another chat board like a million others. They're like neighborhood pubs, some good, most rowdy. Most of them filled with over-testosteroned cretin teenage boys with nothing better to do than cruise and pick fights.

But, after a quick look around, I found something very, very different. Imagine if you wandered into a bar in a strange neighborhood. All the people immediately greeted you like a long lost friend who had just wandered back in. The proprietor and  huge bouncer always smiled unless somebody got rambunctious. Then, with a frown, all but the rowdiest were quelled.

I wandered over to the Politics table and found the proprietor engaged in a protracted, heated and eminently friendly discussion of world politics, ancient history and metaphors for our time. It was, of course, Jim Baen, and he was arguing with his "stable" of authors. And a more eclectic bunch you're rarely going to find.

No where was a troll. No where were the casual flame wars and insults so common on other boards. Rarely were corrections administered with any but the kindest of words. When it got heated, almost invariably one party or another would apologize or at least go to another corner. There was plenty of space for everyone and all the revelers were, at heart, gentlemen and ladies.

After a brief hesitation, I joined the discussions. I made no mention, at first, of my interest in writing. I listened to the discussions and began participating in them avidly. Dendarii Entry Tactics? I had my opinion. History, politics, biology? The pity of Beam Piper's death? How schlocky "Friday" was? Spock's hairdo in ST1? Everyone on the bar spoke a language I had forgotten in the years as a "grownup". Everyone got the jokes! There were more highly intelligent and perceptive people than I had ever seen gathered in one place. And they all liked to "chat". I had, finally, found a home.

Before I knew it I was a card carrying Barfly. And when, in the goodness of time, an author was waxing eloquent on writing, I asked my questions.

About a month after that brief exchange on writing I got into a discussion with Jim Baen on some subject, I forget what. I called him "crazy" and noted that I had to be polite, because there was a book on the slush pile, that heap of unsolicited manuscripts that any publisher has to wade through. Sifting the slushpile is like sifting the ocean for gold; it's there, but in such minute quantities! He joked about it briefly and it was forgotten. Just another friendly exchange.

A week later I got my rejection notice. By then I knew a little about the "Baen Crew" and recognized it as remarkable coincidence. Jim Baen would shoot you dead but never knife you in the back. So I set it aside for fixing and kept working on "Book Two".

A week after that, Jim sent me an e-mail, which he never had before. He told me that they hadn't been able to find the manuscript, it might have been lost on their end. Why didn't I e-mail it to him and he'd give it a look-see?

Of course, some lower echelon editor or reader had looked over my (frankly) terrible mss and decided it didn't meet the Baen Criteria. Heck, I was an avid Baen reader. I knew the height of the bar I was trying for. So I sent Jim the book (document attachment), and what I had done of Two and told him that it had been rejected.

He e-mailed me back and told me, in two paragraphs, the reason it had been rejected and what my two greatest weaknesses were as a
writer. He also told me the way to fix them. But he kept reading it. And then I got an e-mail saying he was on Chapter 19 and that
"we might just have a book here".

My first novel, A Hymn Before Battle, will be published by Baen Publishing Enterprises in Sept. 2000. In addition to buying "Book Two" (Gust Front) he also has arranged a collaboration with David Weber, who is one of the biggest names in Science Fiction today. Next week I will begin writing full-time, writing for my keep, so to speak.

Yeah, I think you could say that Baen's Bar has changed my life. Just a bit.

John Ringo