I haven't seen anybody bring this up yet on Mobileread, but it's an insight I had recently: Ebooks may in part be having trouble getting traction with avid readers simply because pbooks are so easy to find and so cheap.
Here's what I mean: Pick a pbook that you like, go to
ABE Books, and look for used copies. Depending on the sorts of things you favor, you'll probably find more than one copy, and perhaps hundreds. More to the point, you will often see prices under the magic $5 price point cited as the "natural" price for ebooks, and sometimes down as low as a dollar--for hardbacks as well as MM paperbacks. For example, look up one of my all-time favorite authors, John Cornwell, author of
Hitler's Pope. Almost all of his books can be had in hardcover for $1 plus shipping.
Books that are currently in print and in stores may go for as much as $5, but once a book goes out of print, the price plummets. And these are not always beat-to-hell copies, either. Many of them are "remainders," which are basically unused books dumped by publishers at manufacturing cost or less, just to get them out of inventory.
ABE Books has a minimum price of $1, but on Amazon you'll find the "penny sellers" who basically give you the book for free but mark up shipping a little to survive. Cornwell's 1991 book
The Hiding Places of God can be had on Amazon for a penny plus $3.99. It sounds impossible, but these people must be making it work somehow, because there are a
lot of them.
Sure, if you're impatient and want the book Right Now an immediate ebook-style download is compelling, but I think most avid readers keep a "nightstand pile" of pbooks to pull from, and keep the pile fed so they're never without something new. (I certainly do this!)
I haven't seen it mentioned much in the press, but my experience is that publishers do grumble about very slightly used pbook copies of their frontlist titles selling for 25% (or less) of cover online. That being the case, one can almost understand their reluctance to price ebook editions at 20%-25% of cover, as most pundits suggest that they do. They're afraid of training people to think that Books Cost Five Bucks, as the nearly frictionless used book market is already teaching them.
All the more reason to make ebook editions available, so publishers get that $5 rather than used booksellers, but (especially with big publishers) it's going to be a long climb.