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One thing that could really help here is that when a publisher sells an eTextbook, they are selling it for one use. Used book stores really do eat into the profits of the textbook manufacturers. They can sell a $150 textbook once, but then it will spend the next two years or more bouncing around the used shops, where it will sell for $120 (and the store buys it for $50-60, if that.)
It would obviously be pretty dependent on the field, but an eTextbook edition that is used for two years would get four sales a year instead of one. Even at half the price, the publisher would (in theory) make twice as much money on each edition.
That, of course, assumes that they can prevent piracy, which would be a major issue. Unlike normal eBooks users, college students are far more tech-savy, and FAR more 'value conscious'. I knew people who would use the free copiers in the Law library to copy packets or even entire textbooks to save the money. Breaking the DRM on an eBook and sharing it across your class would take far less time, and would likely even produce a revenue stream for some very enterprising students.
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