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Originally Posted by screwballl
Andrew, the market is still so new that people are just buying what they want for their readers without much regard to price which is fairly typical for a few months after Christmas like this, AND the first few years of a brand new market type (aka ebooks with the specific purpose of being used on ereaders).
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Maybe, although e-books aren't brand new. In any event, I'm responding to claims that publishers are being punished *now*. Whether things will change in the future is something I am less certain of.
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As more options come available for online ebook sources, the new owners see the possibilities, they become more vocal and the publishers will end up with 2 choices:
1) drop the price of ebooks a good amount (at least 30-50%), or
2) start losing customers as fewer buy the paper book and refuse to pay the higher price of ebooks from those specific publishers.
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Sorry, but you're just making this up, ignoring the fact that ebooks aren't 30-50% cheaper to produce than paper books or pretending that most consumers will opt for crappy self-published books. The nearest comparable market we've seen is the music market, and since legally downloadable music has been mainstream (i.e., since the itunes music store), there has been no drop in prices; in fact, prices have gone up overall. There is absolutely no reason to assume that books will behave any differently.
Similarly, while everyone was preaching that digital distribution of music on iTunes would lead to a golden age of independent self-produced music, this has not happened: people still want music that is professionally produced by music publishing companies. The same is true (and will remain true) of e-books, with, possibly, a small market for indie authors who somehow manage to be heavily promoted by Amazon or B&N, if these retailers chose to do so.
And of course CDs are still 65% of the market.
Note that the average income of Kindle owners is over $80,000 p.a.; the average age is around 40 (aside from the fact that these numbers are lower for the iPad, I don't know statistics for other readers). This demographic isn't really sensitive to a few dollars per book, particularly if it is inconvenient to save the money.
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The market will dictate the price, just give it a little time and for now just avoid spending money on those particular ebooks.
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I do agree that the market will dictate the price. But I'm not sure it will do what you think it will.