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Currently with hard covers a lot of books go to waste. Stripped and shipped back to the publisher after a few short months. Only a select few very popular books really sell out.
However with Ebooks publishers should be looking at an entirely different model.
They do not have to compete for shelf space. They don't have to recoup all their costs in the first 6 months. They don't have to ship back product that doesn't sell.
The first big publisher who really looks at ebooks, and the market.
Who puts a firm schedule for pricing on ebooks. So that when the hardcover is released, the ebook is in the 8 - 12$ range. When the mass market paperbacks release, it drops below the paperback price point. (Ideally it should be in the 5 - 7$ area)
After that it should drop a dollar a year until the price reaches the 1-2$ range.
Leave it there for a year or 2 then release it, give it away to encourage readers to go buy that authors latest books.
The publisher that does that, with DRM free books, and a pricing structure that I can count on, will sell me books. And he'll sell me a lot of books. And I can buy a lot of books because I can choose when to buy, and at what price point.
The Publisher that try's to get greedy, and jack up prices for something they really didn't think was going to go anywhere. He's going to sell me nothing.
Someone will figure it out, and they will capture the lions share of the ebook market.
Its just a question of who its going to be.
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