E-Books

So occasionally I think it might be nice to try reading a book on my iPhone or ipad, and go looking for a title that's on my list. Invariably the price is way way way out of line, $12 to $20 which is almost as bad as new paper books and a heck of a lot worse than used paper books which is how I buy most of my reading.

What is up with that?

Music sources have figured out that $1/song is a good price, with whole CDs discounted to $9 to $12.  That's reasonable, because it's still half retail for physical product. Why can't publishers make that same calculation?

Bezos and the publishers have been fighting for years. The publishers want full fucking hardback retail for a small file with an incremental cost of zero. It's not unusual to find hard cover books cheaper than e-books on Amazon.

Apple got involved in the e-book market, but the path they were taking got their project sidelined by the feds. They were setting up exclusive deals with publishers, promising them boo-coo bucks.