Baen Books facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Baen Books

Founded	1983
Founder	Jim Baen
Country of origin	United States
Headquarters location	Wake Forest, North Carolina
Distribution	Simon & Schuster (US) Diamond Book Distributors (UK)
Key people	Toni Weisskopf
Publication types	Books
Fiction genres	Science fiction, fantasy

Baen Books (pronounced "bane") is an American company that publishes books. They specialize in exciting science fiction and fantasy stories. In science fiction, they are known for space opera (adventures in space), hard science fiction (stories based on real science), and military science fiction (stories about space battles).

The company was started in 1983 by a well-known science fiction editor named Jim Baen. After he passed away in 2006, Toni Weisskopf, who had worked with him for a long time, became the new publisher.

How Baen Books Started

Baen Books began in 1983. It was created through an agreement between Jim Baen and a larger publishing company called Simon & Schuster. Simon & Schuster was changing many things in their company. They wanted Jim Baen to lead their science fiction book section.

But Jim Baen had a different idea. With help from friends, he suggested starting his own company, Baen Books. Then, Baen Books would provide science fiction books for Simon & Schuster to sell. This is how Baen Books came to be.

In 2004, Baen Books was one of the most active publishers in the U.S. for science fiction and fantasy. They published many new and exciting books. They were also ranked as one of the most popular science fiction publishers. This was based on how often their books appeared on bestseller lists.

Reading Books Online

Since 1999, Baen Books has focused a lot on publishing books electronically. This means they make their books available to read on computers and other devices. They also use the internet to promote their books.

Baen Books has a special way of doing things. They offer digital versions of their books without something called Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM is a kind of copy protection that can limit how you use an e-book. Baen believes that DRM causes more problems than it solves for readers and publishers.

Because of this, Baen makes its entire collection of e-books available in many different formats. You can download them easily. They also usually price their e-books the same as, or even less than, paperback books. This strategy has been very successful for them.

Baen's Online Community

Baen Books also created an online place called "Baen's Bar." This was a special forum where readers, authors, and editors could talk to each other. It started as a simple online message board.

Many authors and fans helped make Baen's Bar a lively community. People could discuss books, ideas, and more.

In 2021, there were some concerns about discussions happening on Baen's Bar. Because of these concerns, the publisher decided to temporarily close the forum for investigation. It was reopened a few months later in April 2021.

Baen's E-book Store

Baen Books sells individual e-books. They also offer new books in monthly bundles at a lower price. These bundles were first called Webscriptions. Now, they are part of Baen Ebooks.

These Monthly Baen Bundles are released about three months before the printed books come out. The first part of the bundle includes about half of each book. The second part includes about three-quarters. The full text is available about a month before the printed book. This lets readers get a head start on new stories.

Baen also offers something called eARCs (electronic advance reading copies). These are like early versions of books. They are available 3 to 5 months before the book is officially published. They are for fans who really want to read a new story right away. These early versions might be slightly different from the final book.

Baen's e-books come in many common formats. They are all free of DRM. This means when you buy a book from Baen, you can read it online or download it in any format you like. You can also download it as many times as you want.

Baen also uses free content to promote its books. For example, you can often find free sample chapters on their website. The "Baen Free Library" offers dozens of free books from their past collection. These are often the first book in a series. Baen also gives free e-books to readers who are blind, paralyzed, dyslexic, or amputees.

Baen's focus on e-books has received positive attention. Many people in the publishing world have praised their approach. They have shown that offering e-books can help sell more books and reach a wider audience.

Magazine Experiments

Baen Books has also experimented with publishing books in a magazine-like style. In the 1970s, Jim Baen published a quarterly "bookazine" called Destinies. It featured both fiction and non-fiction stories.

Later, under Baen Books in the 1980s, he published two more bookazine series: Far Frontiers and New Destinies.

The Grantville Gazettes

Baen also started publishing The Grantville Gazette. This is an e-magazine that features stories related to the popular Ring of Fire alternate history books. These Gazettes are like professionally edited fan fiction. They are published regularly and are available online.

Jim Baen's Universe

In the early 2000s, Baen tried online magazine publishing again. They created two online magazines, Jim Baen's Universe and the reconfigured Grantville Gazette series.

Baen's Universe was a large online magazine for speculative fiction. It was much bigger than most traditional print science fiction magazines.

Authors and Book Series

Baen Books has published many popular authors and book series.

Authors

Here are some of the authors whose works have been published by Baen:

Series

A "series" is a group of books that tell a continuing story or are set in the same fictional world. Here are some popular series published by Baen:

• 1632 series/Ring of Fire series
• Belisarius series: This science fiction series is about a war from the future that affects Earth in the 6th century.
• Bolo
• Chicks in Chainmail: A collection of stories about strong female characters, edited by Esther Friesner.
• Freehold War
• Heroes in Hell
• Honorverse (Honor Harrington)
• Legacy of the Aldenata
• Liaden universe
• March Upcountry Series
• Raj Whitehall
• The Bard's Tale: Books based on the computer game series.
• The Man-Kzin Wars: Stories set in Larry Niven's Known Space universe, featuring cat-like aliens called Kzinti.
• Vorkosigan Saga
• War Between the Provinces
• Wing Commander: Baen published several novels based on the popular Wing Commander video game series.

See Also

• Hard science fiction
• Military science fiction
• Space opera