[nonanon]

Publishers sell in bulk to stores like Costco and Sams and those stores can sell a $30 book for less than half of cover price. Given that there's still a distribution chain and manufacturing costs it would obviously be even cheaper to just sell the data in ebook format. Big box sellers often sell new release hardcovers so that's not really an issue either yet you don't hear authors worrying that Costco is cutting into their livelihood. New tech is always attacked and feared by the older media, LP records cause many to fear it would cut into concert ticket sales. Instead artists made far more than before. Same with cassettes where artists worried (deservedly) that many would just record music from FM radio. But their profits still went up. This also happened with CDs since it was assumed everyone would just rip a friend's CD and not buy, yet their profits still increased dramatically. As of now we're just waiting for them to find a new model to make money with the new tech and to stop fearing it and assuming all their customers are thieves. I loathe watching DVDs which almost accuse me of piracy with all their warnings and I'm sure real pirates ignore those warnings anyway.