Even if ebooks were 10% the price of pbooks, they would often be more expensive than pbooks. I realize that a lot of people buy their books new, either because they want the latest titles or because it is easier to find a particular title. Yet there are also a lot of people who buy books used or who get books for free. Even at a used book store, which is often the most expensive option for used books, you'll typically pay half of the cover price. Thrift store prices vary, but they seem to range from 5% to 25% of the cover price. There are also plenty of ways to get free books, ranging from having a book passed along by a friend to strangers leaving boxes of free books by the curbside. There are a lot of reasons why people are willing to pay less than MSRP, but I'm just going to point out one because a lot of people seem to prefer ebooks due to space considerations: there is a difference between readers and collectors. There is a definite overlap because many avid readers will maintain their own library, but there are also avid readers who have no interest in maintaining their own library. Once they are done with a book, they'll get rid of it (or hold on to it until they can get rid of it). Now there is a fairly good chance that those people will value a book, in terms of dollars and cents, less than a person who will hold onto a book for years. It is also quite probable that those people are willing to pay more for a book that they are going to keep. For physical books, this isn't an issue. You just exercise your patience and deal hunting skills, and you'll find the book at the price you want (even if that is free). For electronic books, that is an issue. Most of the options for cheap books simply do not exist because the only people who can sell ebooks have a contractual relationship with the publisher. Even if that relationship doesn't set the retail price for the book, it will determine how much the vendor is paying for the book. Since vendors are in the business of making money, unlike your friends or the guy who put a box of free books on the curb, they are unlikely to sell a book below cost. (Yes, I know that they sometimes do. But they do that with the expectation that you'll spend money on products that will turn a profit.) So yeah, I find ebooks expensive. Simply put, I almost never pay MSRP.