Publishers still missing the point on e-book prices

When the major book publishing firms signed an agreement with Apple that allowed them to control the prices for their e-books — unlike the deal they had with Amazon, which gave the online retailer the right to cut prices if it wanted to — they probably thought they had won a major battle. But as a Wall Street Journal story points out, they are still shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to e-book prices, by keeping them artificially high in an attempt to shore up their profit margins and protect their existing print business. In the long run, that pricing model could wind up doing far more damage than the model it replaced. The Journal piece notes that e-book prices, particularly for some best-selling and popular titles, are in many cases actually higher than prices for the comparable print version. And how do publishers justify doing this? Among other things, they claim that consumers are actually willing to pay more for the e-book version of a novel because of the convenience and other features that they get with an electronic edition — the ability to search, make highlights, and so on. This sounds like a giant case of wishful thinking, and there is mounting evidence to indicate it is just that.