Not sure that it's the price of eBooks that is killing sales. Amazon's discounts (compared to new books) are significant. Small publishers like mine offer eBooks MUCH more cheaply than paperbacks.
I do suspect that the economic downturn has impacted luxury devices like the Kindle and Sony Reader. That $359 price tag still does stick in my throat (believe me, running a small publisher isn't anything like printing money).
I love the concept of ePaper, but if it really can only be offered at a luxury price, then we need to keep on pushing reading on multiple devices--including PDAs, cellphones, iPods, etc. (Does anyone make a good eBook reader for iPod or Zune?).
Rob Preece
Publisher,
www.BooksForABuck.com