Quote:
Originally Posted by taustin
If that is the common consensus, then there is no market for ebooks. If a publisher honestly believes (especially if they're correct) that they will make less money (and you're talking quite a bit less) from ebooks, or even loose money on them, compared to paper books, it would be literally criminal for them to pursue the ebook market at the expense of their shareholders.
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I don't believe that this is a viable option for most publishers. The ebook genie is out of the bottle and the publishers have no chance to push it back. Provided some book is even moderately popular either the publisher will publish an ebook version or someone else will do so. Price gauging is also risky. People who wouldn't dream of stealing a book from their local book store will act quite differently when faced with the option to download a DRM infested ebook for 24 Euros from a book store or to simply download the same book without DRM for free from some server in Russia. Unlike with HD films you can download books even with a slow internet connection. Up to now publishers were able to ignore this development as people reading ebooks were still quite a minority. With the spread of ebook readers, smartphones, iPads, Android tablets etc. this is going to change massively and publishers will have the same problems as the music industry.