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I'm curious how much of the cost of the publishing process they're trying to recoup with expensive hardbacks. My understanding is the hardback only costs a few more dollars to produce per unit than the paperback. It's a high margin item that seeks to extract the most money it can from people who don't want to wait for the paperback. They add some value for the consumer with the more attractive and durable packaging so they don't think they're totally being taken advantage of but ebooks, especially with DRM, don't have that added benefit. They're not going to convince ebook buyers to pay that huge margin for getting the book right away. They've been trying and they've been failing.
Honestly, I think this hardback v. paperback model is starting to crumble. You're seeing more books going straight to paperback. People don't want to pay the exorbitant prices they want for hardback and making them wait for the paperback probably costs them sales. Authors do their publicity tours for the hardback release. I'm sure many people see the reviews or the interviews and decide they'll buy the book when the paperback comes out, then they forget or lose interest. That's a lost sale. I bet for most books, you'd get better overall sales if you went straight to paperback. Do a nice paperback printing a slightly higher cost and sell more units. Rather than high margin and low margin, go for a medium margin.
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