Jim Baen has died
It’s not a name that everyone knows, but Jim Baen, founder of Baen books died this week. There’s an obituary at David Drake’s. I suppose I can muster three reasons why he’s worth mentioning here. First, he published a lot of good books that I’ve enjoyed reading. Second, he was a huge proponent of publishing books in electronic format – and not encrypting them. The combination of these two things has meant I’ve read some stuff I’d not otherwise have bothered with, but really enjoyed. Despite the fact that many publishers have struggled greatly with electronic publishing, Jim Baen’s open and honest approach (he felt that encryption just got in the way of people actually reading the books) led to Baen Books making plenty of cash from it. Indeed, they’ve got a substantial free library of ebooks to download and read; obviously, the idea is that you’ll like them and buy other books by the same authors. I know I did!
The third thing is just one of those little coincidences – we share a birthday, 28 years apart.
pax et bonum
Follow comments using Co.mments.com
Add to your del.icio.us bookmarks
