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I've got to agree with what a lot of others have said, now that the readers are more popular and have made greater penetration into the main stream (not just early adopters and technophiles) the demand for eBooks should increase. As that increase and the demand for both paper and hard cover declines the publishers will almost be forced to make changes, or go the route of the music industry.
Sure they can delay the eBooks but it wont help, people that want an eBook wont buy a hardcover just because it isn't available in e, they'll go to the darkside and get it (you dont need to be a geek to do that anymore), and maybe, just maybe, they'll buy a real version of the eBook when they are available - depending on the quality of the darknet version.
I hope that the prices for eBooks will eventually fall a bit more as well, to something a bit under current paperback levels. Yes there is a savings on the ink, paper, transportation, storage, etc, but I would bet that it is not as significant as we might think, maybe a dollar or two for a paperback. The smart thing for publishers to do would be to do something like Baen and create there own eBook store and sell them direct. They could compete with, if not beat out, the likes of amazon and still make a better profit by eliminating the middle man. And creating a functional store is not a terribly difficult task nowadays.
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