[akgoel]

Well, it's not surprising, but I'm not sure I agree with they psychology that ebooks should be cheaper. Pricing for books is not just a markup over marginal cost. I have this discussion every day in our office - our price is not based on our cost, our price is based on what our customer is willing to pay.

If the price of ebooks has gone up, the publishers are trying to find a balance of maximizing revenues and profit across the every distribution channel, while also taking into account any lost sales due to piracy.

Why should publishers give up rents to readers just because costs have gone down?

[saint_fiasco]

Presumably because if you don't, other publishers might, and they will get your customers.

For some weird reason, no publisher decided to do that. Except pirates, but they always do that.

[tsotha]

Publishers may be okay at the moment, but I still think they're doomed. There's literally no barrier to entry in the publishing business, which is eventually going to break their pricing cartel.

[JupiterMoon]

As a reader without unlimited time the publishing industry acts as a barrier to entry which filters out the worst books... We need a robust reviewing system which filters out shill reviews.

[tsotha]

You don't need a publishing industry for that; you just need book reviews.

[douche]

Goodreads? And some critical reading skills to pick out the shills?

[JupiterMoon]

Why should I waste time on this? I know that books in the SciFi section of my local bookshop will have a certain minimum standard without needing to wade through some reviews.

[douche]

You have a better local bookstore than I do. Mine is all Star Wars expanded universe dreck (last decade or so, in prequel land or tying into a children's cartoon), Star Trek fan-fiction, Halo novelizations, etc. With some classic Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Bova, and a very few other authors thrown in to class up the joint, although usually just the more well-known titles I've already read.