Sorry, I meant new releases rather than just backlist, which I would say ought not to be more expensive than £2 (because many readers will have purchased them before, and may just want to pick them up again in this new format; and increased royalty rates mean that authors have nothing to lose from first-time buyers getting them so cheap at the same time). Most new releases are about 50p-80p cheaper in eBook than Hb - not enough of a discount. Mass market was also a stupid term to use (it was late) - mainstream is what I meant (i.e. commercial, non-technical books), and not eBook equivalents of 'mass market paperbacks'. So, e.g. your latest is not in the £3-£4 range. And I think either it should be, or it should not be available as an eBook till it can be that kind of price - i.e. on paperback release. I wouldn't pirate instead of buying it at the steep price of £7.19 - I've actually bought the Hb instead, a bargainous snip at 60p extra for a physical copy that can sit on my shelf.

And I actually think that's what publishers want, in many ways: their pricing of new commercial eBooks is largely designed not to sell eBooks but to sell physical books. Which is a shame, because I think that physical books will never go away no matter what, and that the number of customers who end up not buying the book at all because they cannot get it quickly and reasonably priced as an eBook is significant and will only keep growing. (I think it's going to be more of a problem than those readers who would simply buy the cheaper eBook if it existed and cut the publisher's, but not the author's, profit slightly.) I doubt most will pirate; most will just buy someone else's book - or no book at all. Hence some self-pub successes, etc. That's more scary than piracy, IMO, since it is far more easily and instantly done.


