Baen Ebooks

Baen Ebooks is an e-book supplier operated by Baen Books. It sells e-books for Baen and some other publishers, as well as hosting the Baen Free Library. Unlike most e-book suppliers, it does not use Digital Rights Management (i.e., copy protection). Purchasers can download the same e-book in seven different formats (BBeB, EPUB, HTML, Microsoft Reader Mobipocket, Rocketbook, and RTF), even long after the initial purchase. Their range of genres offered is heavy on science fiction and fantasy.

Until January 2012, Baen sold e-books through Webscriptions, which was established in 1999. Webscriptions was closely associated with (but apparently legally distinct from) Baen Books. It was owned and operated by Webwrights, a Tennessee company run by Arnold Bailey. Webwrights also ran Baen Books' website and Baen's Bar, a web forum for Baen readers and authors. At first, Webscriptions offered only Baen titles; later, a few other publishers started using Webscriptions after seeing Baen use e-books to significantly increase hardcover sales (for example, by providing the Baen Free Library, which was launched at much the same time as Webscriptions).

In the strictest sense, Webscriptions really referred to a subscription service through which customers got four–six Baen books per month as e-ARC (digital Advanced Readers Copy) releases. Each month, four to six as-yet unpublished works are made available for purchase as a group. The books are released incrementally. Three months before their official release date, only the first half of the books are available for download. Two months before their official release, the first three quarters of the books are available. The complete books are available for download a month before they are released in paper form. While the books are only partially available ("Advanced Readers Copy"), the only download format is HTML. However, once the books are complete, they can be downloaded in all the supported e-book formats. When Webscriptions.net was replaced by BaenEbooks.com, these "WebScriptions" continued under the name "Monthly Baen Bundles". One of the other publishers using Baen Ebooks, Night Shade Books, also sells a monthly bundle. The monthly bundles remained on sale indefinitely. (As of 2013, Baen bundles cannot be purchased once the print books go on sale; all Night Shade bundles are still on sale.)

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