Another chapter RE the so-called "agency model" (where publishers and not booksellers set the book prices) and what physical book and eBook prices should be.

Please refer to the 10/5/10 post "E-Books are Selling for More than Hardcovers!" on the Writers Welcome Blog for an interesting background.

Apparently, the sole argument put forth as to why eBooks should be cheaper than their physical counterparts is the fact that you don't have the more expensive production costs (printing, paper, binding, delivery, storage, etc).  

Has anybody thought about the fact that the real gold is the written content, regardless of the media format, and not production costs, which by the way, are vastly improving for physical books as well. If the content is a must-have for a person they will pay the price and set the market. Simple as that.

Read this entertaining analysis about eBook prices by Dan Gillmor for Salon.com:

Having taken control of pricing from Amazon, publishers are foolishly pushing down demand.
 

When America's book publishers wrested control of e-book prices from Amazon earlier this year, I expected two results. First, prices would go up. Second, I'd buy fewer new Kindle books. I got that part right.

What I didn't expect, however, was that publishers would be so incredibly foolish as to start raising e-book prices to the point that they were close to, and in a few cases above, the hardcover prices. Here's a non-literary term for this policy: nuts.

I've been keeping loose track of this trend for months, and had noticed that some hardcover books were getting close to the Kindle prices. Then the barrier fell, as the New York Times reportedthis week, when at least two books actually were more costly to read on Kindle devices than the actual physical book.

How did this happen? It's a classic Traditional Media vs. the Digital Age story. The key players are Amazon, the major book publishers and Apple.

Like other booksellers, Amazon buys physical books from publishers at a wholesale price, typically half the suggested retail price. And, like some other booksellers, Amazon sells the books to customers, usually at a small markup. There's nothing stopping booksellers from selling below their costs, as "loss-leaders," if they choose.

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