Does anyone really expect this higher pricing to hold up for longer than six months? Authors are already signing exclusive deals with Amazon and when ebooks become a significant portion of the market share, publishers become less important. THAT's the main issue here. Authors are signing deals that basically give 85 percent of their ebook royalties to the publisher, practically for life, based on the new ebook clauses. Right now, if they make big money in paper, who cares? But when the tipping point arrives, and Amazon would pay them 70 percent directly...well, you can see where this is headed. Amazon is dumb like a fox. This battle was over long ago.
I'd suggest one way to express your opinion about pricing is to support the many indie authors who are tearing up the Kindle bestseller lists--lists that are real-time and not created by advertising and hype and product placement. Most, like me and Haunted Computer Books, are pricing at $1.99 and down, which we feel is a fair price for digital content.
In three years, this battle will seem insignificant, because ebooks are exploding and people love their mobile reads.
Scott Nicholson
The Red Church
http://tiny.cc/SMAKb