> They did away with almost all of the benefit of their ebook bundle pricing.

Hmmm?

I've been buying the Baen Monthly Bundles religiously since 2003.

I paid $18 for last month's bundle, vs. the $56 I would have paid "a la carte". Granted, part of that difference is that Baen just raised the price of individual ebooks, but did not increase the price of the bundles.

Perhaps you were alluding to the period a year or two back when the price on the bundles was raised, but not the individual books. That was probably the point of minimum relative benefit.

Granted, given my purchase history and the fact that most books in a given bundle are from the "back list", there were only three books in the latest bundle I didn't have, and I could have got them for $22 "a la carte". However, for newer customers that haven't amassed the 600+ Baen ebook library I have, I think the bundles are definitely worth considering.

What's going on:

The changes in the last few months were apparently conditions set by Amazon in exhange for letting Baen sell their books for the Kindle. There's some discussion of this at the top of the Baen Free Library page.

This Amazon deal doesn't seem great for Baen customers:

• You now have to buy the monthly bundle in advance - it isn't available after general release
• The price of individual ebooks was raised significantly
• Most of the books in the Baen Free Library disappeared

While last two items don't have much direct impact on me ( I buy each monthly bundle, and little else) it would seem to me that the relative attractiveness of Baen to new book buyers has taken a step down.

However, at the moment I will still recommend Baen, with the DRM-free books (I read mine in three different formats on three different devices) and the monthly bundles still being strong points, in my opinion.

Mitigations:

Getting (former) Baen Free Library Ebooks

As it has for a long time, the site The Fifth Imperium hosts (with Baen's permission) downloadable images of the Baen CDs full of ebooks that Baen distributed freely with some of the hardcover books. There must be over 100 of my favorite books on those CDs. The one change noted at the Fifth Imperium regarding the recent changes is that, at Baen's request, the site no longer permits downloads of individual ebooks - you have to download the full CD image that contains the book(s) you want.

Of course, the recent changes emphasize that good things don't last forever, so if you haven't sucked down those CD images, now might be a good time. (Along those lines, while, generally, you can redownload any of your past ebook purchases from Baen site itself in any (of the many) formats they support, Baen does mention that once the copyright reverts to the author, they may no longer be permitted to provide that service for such books, so backing up your ebooks in the formats you may want in the future is still prudent.)

Getting the Baen Monthly Bundles

The meticulous thing is: put a monthly alert on your calendar to buy before the deadline, then wait patiently until after the release date to download. (The impatient thing is - download immediately at purchase (obtaining the "3/4" version in some cases) and redownload the full ebooks after general release. The "back issues" of the monthly bundles are, alas not available. Had I known this was coming, I would have taken a hard look at the pre-2003 bundles I had not purchased (I had purchased 7 of the year 2000 bundles, thankfully).