The publishers are pretty much treating ebooks the same way they do paperbacks. The concern is that if retailers can push the ebook wholesale cost below its current levels, the publishers will basically lose a major source of their profits.
Publishing, by the way, is not exactly a high-margin business; and pretty much every business that is threatened by a disruptive technology is obviously going to have to try different things in order to just stay in business. While I understand that people want Cheap Stuff, it's also rather short-sighted to presume that companies who try to deal with this ought to just give up and willingly destroy their business model, or are "living in the past" because of a technology change that literally got rolling in the last 6 months, and still constitutes around 5% of total revenues.
Or, to put it another way: If your boss walked up to you, fired you, and explained that your job was going to get outsourced to India or replaced by a computer program, would you shake her hand, say "that's a great idea, I'm so glad you thought of it, thanks!" and blissfully collect your unemployment checks?
By the way, people are pretty much acclimated to waiting if they want the paperback at a lower price; I don't hear too much squealing when the latest hot seller is only available in hardcover for up to 6 months. I'm not really seeing why ebooks should be automatically be treated differently, especially if you want the publishers to lower the price.
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Originally Posted by ssanik
I am skeptical that in the US publishers make the most money on HB's. I would think they would make the most on Pbacks and Trade Pbacks. The materials are fairly cheap and the shipping has to be less.
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It's pretty well understood that the margins on hardcovers are substantially higher; in fact, the "paper" part of the process generally constitutes far less of the costs of publishing a book than most people realize (~12% or so). It probably only costs 50¢ extra per book to make a book in hardcover form.