US publishing company founded in 1983 by Jim Baen. The firm publishes only sf and fantasy. Though it distributes its publications through Simon and Schuster, it has maintained itself as a full and genuine publisher, generally specializing in military sf, though the range of authors it publishes is fairly wide, including Roger MacBride Allen, Poul Anderson, Lois McMaster Bujold, John Dalmas, David A Drake, Elizabeth Moon, Niven, Pournelle, S M Stirling and Timothy Zahn. Baen also published several novels by Newt Gingrich and William R Forstchen, beginning with 1945 (1995).
[[Further post-1995 updates awaited here.]]
Baen Books has made daring (by the standards of conventional publishers) use of the internet in book promotion, not only marketing e-books but offering entire story and novel texts online as the "Baen Free Library", with a positive effect on printed book sales. The company survived the death of its founder Jim Baen in 2006. [JC/DRL]
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