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A very valid quest and not entirely easy to answer. Partly because we are still in the middle of a paradigm shift and partly because traditional economical tools of analysis may not be applicable. Price is traditionally decided by an equblium between supply and demand. In traditional publishing supply is set by a print order. In the new world order supply is for all practical purposes unlimited and this will put pressure on price down towards zero. That is the first shift in the pricing model and this is still where we find ourselves (just look at all the predictable postings on why e-books should be cheaper then p-books). This pressure will continue downwards towards a new equilibrium. That price point will likely be so low that it discourages new agents (authors in this case) to enter the market, hence no new books until the lack of supply will begin to put an upward pressure on prices. The problem we face for us and the forseeable future is that there are already so many free (or almost free) books available that it will probably take a long while before we realize the lack of supply.
If I was dependent for my livelihood to write fiction I would seriously look into writing movie scripts.
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