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The key to lower prices for consumers and higher profits for publishers and authors is disintermediation.
The primary reason Baen can make money selling their eBooks so cheaply ($6.00 quantity one, cheaper in bundles -- my average cost per Baen e-book is $3.47) is that they've cut out two layers of middlemen. No more distributor taking a big slice. No bricks-and-mortar retailer, ditto.
Given the structure of paper book retailing, any eBook scheme that simply replicates that structure will be hard-pressed to deliver costs that are much cheaper than what we're seeing now. So get out there and push the publishers to set up their own stores. And push the retailers (like Sony, B&N, Amazon, etc. to take a smaller cut of eSales). And... well, you get the picture.
Xenophon
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