[SensualPoet]

Penalizing a specific book title with a one-star review at one vendor's website because you don't like the pricing policies of the publisher for all its books and all its vendors ... sounds ineffectual to me. Your time might be better spent reading Cervantes' Don Quixote.

There is a reason new books, and especially books in the potential "best seller" category, are priced at $15 to $40: enough people are out there willing to pay that price. It really has nothing to do with the format -- it DOES have something to do with expectations. This is why we have the category "trade paperback" which is nothing more than a more glamorous container (for the same words sold in a mass market paperback edition) which publishers can place a higher price tag on.

Intuitively, to many consumers ebooks "feel" like they ought to be cheaper than something physical. Yes, they are different, and are consumed, stored and disposed of differently and there is some value or loss of value or trade-offs in that. Still ... having electrons in my purse vs a nice coffee table statement to others ....

When sweet potatoes are too expensive, I buy old potatoes; when asparagus is too expensive I buy broccoli; when extra old cheddar is too expensive I buy medium cheddar. As consumers, we all substitute one thing for another and constantly are applying our own "price elasticity models" in our choices. If Stephen King's latest opus is $15 and that's more than it's worth to me, I can pick up an $8 Rex Stout I've been meaning to read ... or turn on the TV, for that matter.

So, okay: most leading publishers have decided price fixing is the way they want to run their business. As long as they control the authors I want to read, I'll be buying their goods ... as long as they pass my own willingness to pay those prices -- on a title by title basis.

Amazon has done consumers a favour -- pace, Steven Lake -- by creating the $10 price point as the inflexion point of value. It is sufficiently lower than traditional hardcovers, and neatly spans the middle ground from cheap reprints to trade paper, to create a sense of value for ebooks themselves. I am one of those consumers who would never have bought an ereader had I believed ebooks cost $15 or more -- the $10 "ceiling" promise was the assurance I needed to take the plunge. And it is that price point, going forward, which also "defines" affordability for me going forward.