|
ebook pricing is all over the place.
The only constant is that, except for Baen, nobody prices ebooks cheaper than paperbacks as a policy.
DRM or no DRM, ebooks are massless and frictionless, and hence should not under any condition cost more than treeware, yet they are rarely discounted appropriately. Mostly because publishers only provide half-hearted support out of fear of piracy.
Personally, I see very little in the above-listed announcement.
It is a half-step forward but it does *nothing* to change the existing market dynamic where PDAs, Tablets, and the ebookwise reader are the only widely-available readers worth buying. And neither of the three platforms is exactly drawing crowds.
Basically, this is just another example of PR-ware echoed by a wishful-thinker.
For any ebook format announcement to show me any credibility it has to start by listing a firm commitment of full-catalog support by at least the top three publishers in the US. And that isn't hapenning any time soon.
|