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loyal communities are amazingly cool

May 23, 2004 7:19 AM - comments (4)

I've been getting tons of angry email about something nice I said on Screensavers. I don't remember just what I said, but I apparently praised Tor Books for innovativeness with ebook publishing -- e.g., with Cory's books.

This led angry fans of Baen Books to write to complain that Baen was far better than Tor. (One fan was so angry that he bought me a trial subscription to Baen -- just the sort of criticism I love best!).

I apologize to Baen fans, for I certainly don't intend to criticize the amazingly innovative business model of Baen (which nicely mixes free and non, and strongly encourages new authors). And I respect greatly your loyalty. When's the last time a fan of Sony Records wrote to criticize praise of EMI? (Who was the last fan of Sony Records?)

Posted on May 23, 2004 7:19 AM | | technorati

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Comments (4)

May 26, 2004 8:15 AM D Lacey:

Tor and Baen are the best SF publishers, from this reader's point of view, anyway. Tor publishes the best books and Baen does the best job enticing new readers to their authors with the free books on the web.

When I was a kid I was a fan of Del Rey. I wonder if it's common to be fans of publishers? People are fans of Blizzard, a game publisher. Maybe the music companies are missing out on a marketing opportunity...

May 26, 2004 6:10 PM Patrick Nielsen Hayden:

This particular Tor editor would like to second the praise of Baen's online publishing efforts, which are innovative, clueful, and (as far as I can tell) commercially successful.

June 3, 2004 9:14 AM David:

I don't know what TOR is doing exactly, but I really value Baen's DRM-less publishing, which saves me the trouble of using Convert LIT.

July 16, 2004 7:40 AM Bill Bloggs:

I applaud these excellent principles. Free Culture should remain that and not be subsumed into agencies, authorities or anyone else. See Cyberlaw for more ethics discussion

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