Eric Flint - Electronic Publishing

Electronic Publishing

Eric Flint is noted as the editor of the Baen Free Library which is an ongoing experiment in electronic publishing (e-books in multiple unencrypted formats) where Flint and the late Jim Baen convinced authors 1 to post entirely unprotected free copies of various works for download over the internet. One early goal was to see if the release of free electronic content would increase the sales of their traditional print or (for-pay) electronic editions. As part of the initial phase, Flint has published a series of essays that in form have been part blog and part letters to the editor tracking the experiment and championing the practice.

Financially, it seems to be working out for publisher Baen Books, as they have embraced unencrypted e-book publication for all their works available in a variety of common formats. Usually eighty to a hundred titles are available in the Baen Free Library at any given time. In most cases, the works involved are the early volumes in continuing series, appetite whetters, where readers might be likely to purchase later works in the same series.

All new Baen Books can also be purchased as e-books in the same unencrypted formats as the free library through Baen WebScriptions. As an added wrinkle one can purchase a monthly collection of five bundled works in the release stage of publication at Baen's. Once the bundle reaches four months from its scheduled release date in print, about half of the work is serialized and available to readers purchasing the advanced peek. A month later, the next quarter, followed by the last quarter, available about a month on average ahead of any printed work. The last delivery contains the copyedited e-book version of the book.

One can also purchase electronic Advanced Reader Copies (or eARCs) which are not a part of the forgoing monthly bundle, but are individually available for purchase. These followed a successful experiment with an online eMagazine, called the Grantville Gazette (More below—see 1632 series). The eARCs is an unproofed manuscript and is guaranteed to be full of typos and errors. It is pretty much raw from the author's word processor; however, they are fully available even before the first part of the monthly bundles. eARCs do not include the final proofed version. For the final version you would have to buy the single or monthly bundle for that book. In March 2007, Flint began acting as publisher of a for-fee web-access version of the Gazette.

Flint also helmed Jim Baen's Universe (JBU), an e-zine published from 2006 until 2010.