[Prestidigitweeze]

What you seem to be offering is the standard rationale for the high prices in a publisher's back-catalog. That has been been one reason (traditionally) for inflated pricing, but the cost of the book also reflected the superior physical quality of the editions, which were meant to be archival and often bespoke physical rarity due to the passing of time and limited demand. Those who craved Donner's edition of the complete works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes had to be willing to part with serious shekels, but I dispute the reason for that as having been legitimate. I dispute it even more now, when the edition is not to be published physically and no living writer needs to be paid.

You may entertain any desires you like in terms of pricing a single book, but if you're not careful, you're likely to come off as a greedy ebay lunatic. If you want to charge a higher price, then you can again create a limited physical edition with one-time features. I actually have friends who do this. One of them has just gone to Ireland to work on a project that involves their etching the poems into metal, printing them that way on fine paper, and the artist doing the same. They can charge more for those books because they are a form of original artwork. Whereas if they were simply reproduced as an electronic file, the cost to buyers would be ridiculous and no one would pay.

Publishers have a responsibility to consider the market realistically. I would also argue that the excitement of publishing is in making worthwhile books available to as many readers as possible. I'm currently an editor for a magazine which offers a color printed perfect-bound version, a mobi version (though that's about to be discontinued because the format doesn't quite work) and an online version. The online version is free, the printed version is most expensive and the mobi version (soon to be replaced by another format) was about a dollar a copy. Our costs are reflected in the pricing, and that is the fair thing to do.