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Cover price is largely set according to retail discount. If he works at it, a publisher can sometimes get down to a 25% commission at an online store like Amazon (it's usually set around 40%). Discount/commission at a brick and mortar store can be anything from 40% to the massive 90% sometimes demanded by large supermarket chains.
Then, of course, the retailer can play with further discounting a publisher's goods himself -- suddenly you might find your books are being offered at 20% off cover price or even more.
On the other hand, a retailer will set his own higher price if he thinks he can get away with charging more. Whereas my own wee store can sell our ebooks at around 10% the price of the paperback equivalent, our outside retailers flatly refuse to sell them at anything much under two-thirds of paperback price.
Of course some publishers are greedy (which is counter productive in an emerging market), but the market itself is retail driven.
What's important to remember is that, unless a work is going straight to ebook, the cost of producing a title -- from editorial to promotion -- goes into the treebook. Conversion to digital to offer an ebook equivalent costs very, very little. After that, there are no production or distribution costs involved, just admin to cover, royalies to pay ... and retail.
Once upon a time, it was the printer with his powerful unions and syndicates who held the whip hand. Now it's the shopkeeper.
Until ebook sales signficantly impact treebook profits, there is no excuse for high cover prices on electronic editions.
These silly prices do nothing to encourage ebook reading -- perhaps that's what it's all about; the protection of an army of ancillary workers from packagers to delivery drivers. If so, it's very short sighted.
Whatever; ebook reading WILL eventually profit those who most deserve to benefit; the creators and the readers. Even this funny money can't stop the rolling snowball, just slow its progress.
Cheers. Neil
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