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I thought this section would look good as a formated table, but it is not working for imbedding links. Can anyone figure out how to make it present nicely and still allow user-customers to navigate links?
Two speeches on copyright law the the British
House of Commons during 1841, characterized by historian Flint as brilliant, as they cover the issues still problematic in copyright law.
This is the contents of the table put up today as opposed to this less attractive format:
Introducing the Baen Free Library — Eight pages on how the library came to be and the software piracy and publisher issue in general.
Letters to the Librarian December 20th, 2000 — A selection of 123 letters about the free library as seen by the readers; of particular note: Messages from a blind reader and a handicapped reader.
Macaulay on copyright law — Two speeches on copyright law the the British
House of Commons during 1841, characterized by Flint as brilliant, as they cover the issues still problematic in copyright law.
Letters to the Librarian, Eric Flint April 26, 2002 — More numbers on how hypothetical thefts can't be harming publishing industry to any significant extent. Discusses as well Book Vs eBook preferences, and need for authors to achieve exposure and the role of the Free Library in providing such.
Letters to the Librarian, Eric Flint May 12, 2002 — Stance on helping blind and handicap persons and others of limited means including kids obtain free materials with a arguement of how that eventually helps an authors sales.
Letters to the Librarian, Eric Flint May 12, 2002 — Discusses paper versus screen reading; studies showing much better retention from paper learning, and includes a long letter relating experiences on sales by a educational publisher once they offered free works like Baen Free Library.
Reprint by singer-song writer Janis Ian September 16, 2002 — Three time grammy award winner Janis Ian in an article reprint excoriating music publishing industry and praising Baen and a few others. Flint makes one comment— a minor correction. (This is the last of the Letters to the Librarian)
We don't need to list the current titles
I don't think the section on current titles is necessary or a good use of our time. The Library itself keeps a current list - all anyone should have to do is go there to view it. It is all a bunch of duplicate effort, if you ask me. But I didn't delete the section - if someone wants to keep it updated, that's fine. While you're at it, why don't you keep an updated list on the iTunes article of all titles available there. ;-)
Roachmeister17:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)reply
No, it's not necessary. But it is useful, because the Baen website has lists by title and by author, but not by both together. It also gives you an idea of which authors are very keen on the Free Library idea, which I find quite interesting. And long as it is, it's still quite a bit shorter than the iTunes catalog ... and (more importantly) changes much less often! Cheers,
CWC02:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)reply
Did it work?
The article contains the sentence, "It was founded in autumn 1999 by science fiction writer Eric Flint and publisher Jim Baen to determine whether the availability of books free of charge on the Internet encourages or discourages the sale of their paper books." but gives no indication of what the answer was. Did it help sales or hurt them??? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
98.226.91.213 (
talk)
00:13, 30 September 2012 (UTC)reply
Was this ever in question? My impression, from the first days of the library, was that Flint and Baen knew perfectly well that it would help sales, and they were simply trying to prove it. If that's correct, it should probably be mentioned in the article.
Dstar3k (
talk)
05:09, 12 February 2020 (UTC)reply
Now there are only 12 full books available to download plus a Reader's Guide and three partial editions of short story collections. The pack-in CD-ROM contents can still be downloaded from the fifth imperium site and by bittorrent but only as complete ZIP files or ISO images.
Bizzybody (
talk)
10:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)reply
Yeah. This is one of several changes Baen have made in order to get Amazon and other major eBook retailers to sell Baen eBooks. Quoting from
http://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx
The Baen Free Library is Under Reconstruction – Please Be Patient
The Baen Free Library is undergoing a transition. As a result of our decision to sell our titles at third party vendors, we have had to remove some titles. Others are undergoing alteration and will be brought back into the Library over the next few months. The Second Editions with new material will be available for sale at all venues; the original editions will be restored to the Free Library. We are trying to keep as many titles here as possible. We will also be adding new titles soon, including ones by Larry Correia, and Sharon Lee & Steve Miller.
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