Quote:
Originally Posted by p_a_smith
I don't expect to pay $.99 for ebooks but would like ebook pricing to reflect the reality rather than illusion that publishers would like us to believe. Personally I think those publishers like Baen who offer books for 30-40% off the paperback prices (and don't raise the ebook prices on older stock once it has been issued) are actually treating readers fairly.
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The biggest problem is paper is still 70-80% of publisher revenue. The major publishers can not price ebooks they way they probably should ($6 or so) because they can't afford to undercut their primary source of revenue.
In an ebook-only environment, pretty much all your costs are fixed before the book goes on sale. Once the book's on sale, you want to price it for maximum total revenue. (All royalty and other payments from this point are percentage based, not per-copy, so the number of copies sold is actually irrelevant. It's the revenue that matters.)
So, if your ebook point of maximum revenue is $4 that's where you'd want to price it. But that's going to kill paper sales. It's a huge quandary for the publishers right now, particularly since the whole industry mindset is geared towards pricing per copy.