Jim Baen

In August 2009, Baen's Universe announced that they would be closing down the magazine due to financial issues, stating "we were simply never able to get and retain enough subscribers to put us on a sales plateau that would allow us to continue publishing". [1]

Jim Baen had two daughters, Jessica (1977) with his wife of sixteen years, Madeline Gleich, and Katherine (1992) with Toni Weisskopf. He apparently had a premonition of his own death and suffered a massive bilateral thalamus stroke on June 12, 2006. He died on June 28 at Raleigh, North Carolina, without again regaining consciousness. According to Flint, he did get to see the first issue of his magazine before dying.

In late 2005 Baen announced plans for a bimonthly online science fiction magazine, which was originally named Baen's Astounding Stories. After concerns over trademark infringement with Dell Magazines (publisher of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, which was originally titled Astounding Stories), it was renamed Jim Baen's Universe. The magazine, edited by Eric Flint, published its first issue in June 2006, authors contracted including David Drake and Timothy Zahn.

Baen Books has grown steadily since and established a large readership among fans of accessible adventure SF, publishing books by authors such as David Weber, John Ringo, Eric Flint, David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, Elizabeth Moon, Mercedes Lackey, Larry Niven, and many more. According to Eric Flint's "Editor's Page" column just after Baen's death, once-tiny Baen Books had been voted the second most looked for "label" among science fiction fans – up from fourth in 2004 and seventh in 2003. The rapid growth was credited as being due to Jim Baen's electronic marketing strategy – by seeming to court piracy, ignoring encryption, and giving away free titles on CD-ROM (See "Electronic marketing strategy" under Baen Books), by offering bundled "bargain samplers" and e-ARCs – Baen's e-marketing pulled in sales. People could sample the wares, decide they liked it, and pick up a tangible book to read – which given the series orientation of the SF genre, translated into more than one book. In short, even as the average small town library is trimming titles carried and stocking up on audio-visual media, Baen took advantage of technology to counteract the former "boost" gotten from libraries buying titles and keeping them around.

In 2000, Baen was the editor guest of honor at Chicon 2000, that year's Worldcon. With the interest shown in Flint's 1632 series, he set up a second talk forum for the new writer, one specialized to the buzz of 1632-verse called 1632 Tech Manual. The fans wanted a sequel "yesterday", the research was daunting, so he advised fledgling writers to open up the universe, to make it a shared universe long before the "normal point" in a fictional universe life-cycle; Flint was willing to gamble, and the result was Ring of Fire. Meanwhile, Baen had paired best-selling author David Weber with the emerging mid-list author Flint in a five-book contract, and the resulting 1633 created a new cycle of buzz and interest.

Jim Baen was very active on the web forum of the Baen website, called Baen's Bar, which he started in May 1997; his interests included evolutionary biology, space technology, politics, military history, and puns.

Pournelle, in 1983, described Baen as "arguably one of the best science-fiction editors in the world. Certainly Larry Niven and I regard him among the top two or three we've ever worked with". Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Baen and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.

In 1983, he had the opportunity to start his own independent company, Baen Books, distributed then and now by Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster; this was possible in part thanks to release from a long-term contract by his good friend Doherty.

After hearing Pournelle praise writing with a computer, Baen purchased an IBM PC in the early 1980s. Disliking the layout of the IBM PC keyboard, he commissioned and published Magic Keyboard, a utility to remap its keys. Baen started an experimental web publishing business called Webscriptions in late 1999. (It was relaunched as Baen Ebooks at the start of 2012.) Unlike other eBook publishers, Baen flatly refused to use encryption or even Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), regarding Digital Rights Management as harmful not just to readers but also to authors and publishers. This stance was quite controversial at the time, but Baen Book's hardcover sales numbers have soared in direct relation to the number of titles available as inexpensive e-books, while the competition's remained flat or declined in the same period. As another measure, in comparison, e-royalties paid by Baen run circa 5% of a hardcover royalty over the same period, other publishers have paid out less than 1% comparatively on average — typical period numbers are a difference of four figures to two figures in e-royalties. Critics at the time also dismissed the e-book market as too small. Instead, it is one of the few such enterprises that regularly turn a profit, breaking even in its first year.

Baen edited several anthology series in paperback format, trying to combine the feeling of an anthology and a magazine. To achieve this, they were numbered and dated like a magazine and contained many magazine features: Destinies (Ace, 11 issues 1978-81), Far Frontiers (Baen, 7 issues 1985-6), and New Destinies (Baen, 8 issues numbered I to IV and VI to IX 1987-90). He also edited several volumes of reprints from Galaxy and If in the 1970s.

In 1977, he returned to Ace to head their science fiction line, working with publisher Tom Doherty. When Doherty left to start Tor Books in 1980, Baen shortly followed and started the SF line there.

Baen was Judy-Lynn del Rey's replacement as managing editor at Galaxy Science Fiction in 1973. He succeeded Ejler Jakobsson as editor of Galaxy and If in 1974. While at Galaxy (which absorbed If from 1975) he largely revitalised it, publishing such authors as Jerry Pournelle, Charles Sheffield, Joanna Russ, Spider Robinson, Algis Budrys, and John Varley, and was nominated for several Hugo Awards.

After stints at City College of New York and as the manager of a folk music coffee shop (a "basket house") in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, he started his publishing career in the complaints department of Ace Books. In 1972, he got the job of an assistant Gothics editor.

James Patrick Baen (| beɪn |; October 22, 1943 – June 28, 2006) was a U.S. science fiction publisher and editor. In 1983, he founded his own publishing house, Baen Books, specializing in the adventure, fantasy, military science fiction, and space opera genres. Baen also founded the video game publisher, Baen Software. In late 1999, he started an electronic publishing business called Webscriptions (since renamed to Baen Ebooks), which is considered to be the first profitable e-book vendor.