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The whole situation with ebooks is bizarre given that the big publishing houses have surely enough examples of the outcome of a "head-in-the-sand" attitude from the music industry! I applaud Amazon's success in making e-reading more widespread and mainstream but deplore their efforts to monopolize through their use of a closed, propriatory format. Three thought occur:
1. As has been mentioned, the big publishers' back catalogues are a potential goldmine. Many of these books will never be physically re-published but the minimal costs of e-publishing should make re-prints possible at a reasonable price and, hopefully, without neurotic DRM being needed (this is, afterall, extra income from books that the publishes will never make anything from otherwise).
2. The industry needs to find a DRM model and system that works - one that mimics how people use books (such as lending them to friends and family, borrowing them from a library and maybe even passing them on permanently) and that doesn't lock users out of a book just because they connect their reader to a different PC!
3. Price and quality: Lets see a price that recognises the savings from not needing to print, store and transport physical books and lets have better quality control on ebooks - there is no excuse for typos or poor formatting, especially at the moment when the price being asked can equal that of a hard-backed book!
Just my tuppence-worth
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