Eric Flint is my god

Or something to that effect. Neil - we're history! Eric! Come back to me, my darling! We were meant to be!

See, he posted a new Prime Palaver to the Baen Free Library, giving exact numbers detailing how the free e-copies of his books have increased his sales.

And then someone slash-dotted the article, and people started drawing the obvious parallels to the music industry.

Which sort of made me remember an article/interview by Courtney Love a couple years back when she did the math on record sales and the big-ass chunk the record companies make off of their artists.

I could get distracted by the egregious stupidity of the record companies. I have been distracted by the math that says artists make more off their tours than they do with the $1-2 from each record.

But still - I'd love to see a brave artist with some mega-clout insist on putting mp3's on the web - not the whole album, but maybe a few singles off an album, maybe a remix or two... and then see that album's sales jump. Like, sky-high.

sigh We all have our little fantasies.

(I also [heart] Jim Baen. But that almost goes without saying.)