[Randeep]

Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts.

To me this is the best explanation so far. Even if I own the paperback, i do not get a second or 3 copy of that paperback free, never mind the hard cover, or audio version. Now any publisher that wanted to could offer that, but thats their right to call, and your right as a customer to call them up and request it (but they can and likely will deny siad request).

I don't see that as being a great explanation at all. There are costs associated with physical media that do not exist with eBooks. Just to put it into perspective, you can get a 2nd or 3rd copy of an Ebook very easily. Or a 100,000th copy (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. Repeat).

I do disagree, though, with the implied sentiment by some that an ebook is somehow of less (or no) value compared to a printed book. I see ebooks as a greater value than printed books, because of their higher portability and flexibility, and lower production and distribution costs.

eBooks are a greater value because of their "lower production and distribution costs"? To a publisher, yes, but to the customer no. All it should mean to the buyer is that actual costs should be lower (we see in some cases, however, that this does not happen). In fact, their production costs approaches $0.00 the more a title is distributed. A few people have been making this point and while it's great that you like eBooks better than pbacks, it does change the fact that the economics on the supplier side are a lot cheaper when you go digital.

BTW: I should also state that I know costs for an eBook are not zero. I don't know too much about the ins and outs of how it works, but as a programmer I know a lot of the text is already coming from the author in digital form, but I understand that there is probably a technical department somewhere paying their IT staff a salary and charging X amount of dollars for the production of this book. I can't imagine it is that much though.