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The trouble is that the authors don't dare sell their books as ebook deirectly even though it would increase their personal profits tremendously.
With ebooks, every half-wit could cobble together a story, make a PDF or whatever and then sell it (making a webshop is easy too...all you need is either somebody who does it for you or a package like the one 1&1 offers here in germany...it probably doesn't look too professional but it works).
The trouble is, that most authorsare still heavily dependant on the whol publishing and advertising industry.
New, startup authors or those who couldn't get a publisher before might try it, others will meekly ask their publishers for permission.
And I don't think many publishers would be willing to sell ebooks for cheap because that might eat into their paperback profits.
The dilemma is, that unless the ebook market is large enough, authors won't dare venture into it for fear of angering their publishers and losing the paperback sales without having adequate "recompense" through ebook sales.
But where do you get the large market if nobody dares to enter it...
Maybe some day there will be a big revolt...all the people (or at least a significant amount) will refrain from buying paper books for 4 weeks and instead just download whatever they want to read from emule/kazaa/bittorren/whatever. If something like that happens, authors and publishers will feel the urge to change something.
If something momentous like that doesn't happen, then it'll take a long time for the ebook market to grow, a long time for ebook prices to drop and for eink devices to become commonplace and cheap.
And believe me...i'm an Optimist..^^
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