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I know this has been studied but any current number is hidden inside for-pay industry reports. I know textbooks typically get resold 5-7 times over their life; I assume other books aren't resold nearly as often. I'm tempted to say that an average book is probably only resold 2-3 times but that's just my guess. (Most readers I know never resell their books, so if they pick something up at a used bookstore chances are it's not going back into one until they die...)
But it's not fair to say that the industry uses DRM to try to kill the used market and get a piece of the pie. That's just not their primary motivation. They've lived with used books for years and they know how to make money with pbooks anyway. Ebooks are a way to make more money, yes, but ebooks are so new and so small that the opportunities for resale have so far been miniscule. So they aren't exactly raking in the dough from people who can't buy a used ebook copy of The Dresden Files.
Ebook prices are high primarily because of supply and demand and the nature of the market. The number of ebook owners out there is still very low. Most of those that are are cutting edge early adopters of technology. They've also paid a lot of money for their ebook reader. And the total selection of ebooks is still limited. So you have a highly motivated customer with a lot of disposable income looking for goods in a market where the supply is still low. Result? Producers of supply can charge a high price, and get away with it.
Once they've gotten all the folks willing to pay $15 for an ebook, then they'll move down to $12, to $10, to $5, etc. Once more grandmas have ebook readers they'll sell more books at a price grandma can afford. The Kindle has been a great step in this direction, and the growing integration of portable computing into our daily lives over the past decade cannot be overlooked. But ebooks are not quite mainstream yet. As they become mainstream you'll see prices fall!
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