Last month I ran into this bit of ebook pricing analysis by an author:
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/04/20...comment-186694
Quote:
A year or two ago, I tried to work out what would be a competitive price for ebooks compared with paper books, all other factors being equal. Normally you can buy a second-hand paper book (if you can find it) for about half the cover price, and you can sell your old books to second-hand stores for a store credit worth about half of that. So 25 percent of the cover price represents resale value. Then I knocked off another chunk for the capital factor: To read ebooks, you need to invest in a special piece of equipment, whereas a paper book has its own reader built in. And without special software and permissions, you can’t lend the data off your reader to someone else’s reader: which takes another bit off the value.
My conclusion: If an ebook sells for more than two-thirds the price of the cheapest print edition, it’s probably overpriced.
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(That being from Tom Simon of :
http://bondwine.com/)
In other words, the fact that ebooks can't be resold is already baked into the price, if the price is reasonable. If it isn't, walk away.
As it turns out, there is no shortage of ebooks priced closer to 50% off their pbook competition. Which is why the bulk of the market puts up with current licensing terms.
Whether they bother to crunch the numbers or not, modern consumers have a good feel for value on their terms, which is why neither the publishers' pipe dream of higher prices nor the advocates dream of digital first sale rights gets much traction. The occasional price fix conspiracy aside, current ebook price ranges are broadly speaking fair.