The story
Baen Books was founded in 1983 out of a negotiated agreement between Jim Baen and Simon & Schuster. Simon & Schuster was undergoing massive reorganization and wanted to hire Baen to head and revitalize the science fiction line of its Pocket Books division. Baen, with financial backing from some friends, counteroffered with a proposal to start up a new company named Baen Books and provide Simon & Schuster with a science fiction line to distribute instead.
According to Locus's 2004 Book Summary, Baen Books was the ninth most active publisher in the U.S. in terms of most books published in the genres indicated, and the fifth most active publisher of the dedicated science fiction imprints, publishing a total of 67 titles (of which 40 were original titles). Based on the number of times a title published by Baen Books appeared in the bestseller lists produced by the major bookselling chains, it is ranked the seventh most popular science fiction publisher. In 2005, Baen moved up to the eighth position in the total books published with 72 books published (of which 40 were original titles).
From Wikipedia’s article on Baen Books, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4