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The math just doesn't hold up. Okay, so hardcover used to be $26 list. Amazon used to buy them at $13 each, sell them at $17 each. $4 profit for Amazon; full profit for publishers.
Now the claim is Amazon is buying them $13 in ebook form and selling them at $10. I don't believe they're paying $13 per ebook. Maybe from some publishers. But I know the costs. Ebooks can easily be $3 cheaper to make than the equivalent paperback, let alone hardback. Mass market paperbacks are $8 - $10 list. How much is Amazon buying those for? $6? No reason ebooks should cost more than mass market paperback.
Okay, so publisher margins will get squeezed if people buy ebooks rather than hardbacks. But they'll still turn a profit. Perhaps ebook prices will need to come up a couple of bucks, but it's hardly the end of the world.
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