Do print pubs make exaggerate the cons to protect their print business? I'm sure some of them do. In the wake of Napster and the peer to peer networks that followed it, traditional media companies are paranoid about digital anything. I've argued in the past that not supporting legitimate ebooks only fuels the pirate market, but the fact is that many print publishers seem to go out of their way to make ebooks less appealing than their print counterparts. An easy way to do this is to price ebooks higher than print, making print the better deal for the consumer.

A fair price is the highest price that provides good value to the buyer. This is a win/win in that the publisher (and hopefully, the writer) makes money and the reader is excited about her purchase.The market has yet to decide on what this price is for ebooks.

Read the full article at writingonyourpalm.net (http://www.writingonyourpalm.net/column031027.htm) first.

is an e-book like a book you get off the computer

I admit I just had a quick look at the article, but I think it only concerns general litterature.
If you consider technical books (medical/law reference titles, dictionaries or encyclopedias), one can spend more than 50 US$.
Few examples:
Encyclopedia Brittanica, the Harriet Lane Handbook, Canale, Mosby, Griffith's, PDR, ...

In this specific case, eBooks have more functionalities than paperback (instant lookup, calculators, cross references between articles, ...).

Gots to be cheaper than paperback. Much as I like to read on the PalmOS, paperback is more functional (no battery issues, ie).

I have an other issue with eBooks. I am a very visual person and when I read a non-fiction book, I can usually remember passages of it, not only by content, but also by the layout of the book (paragraph in question was left or right, top or bottom, there was a illustration to the right, etc.). On the other hand, an eBook appears more "static" to me (due to the small display of current PDAs), where I cannot remember the "look" of a page where a certain paragraph appeared. So at the end, its easier for me to digest content from a paper book than from an eBook.

I think if I am ever going to buy an e-book, 90%-100% of that money should go to the person who did all of the work, TH WRITER. Publishers do very little work except find new books to add to their money flow. I say you get back as much as you put in!