What's an e-book really worth?

I think it’s ridiculous that people would complain about paying $14.99 for an e-book. Books, whatever their form, provide days of entertainment, whereas people have no problem shelling out $15 for a 3D movie that will only last two hours. Besides, authors, agents, publishers, editors, etc need to be paid for their work, and that’s hard to do when you’re tossing books away for 9 bucks.

Thinking this whole thing is about price is missing the point. It’s about control. The publishing industry is losing control, and it trots out CEOs to grandstand about “valuing authors” because it knows that people will believe it. Everyone wants to value authors, right? You start nodding at valuing authors, and keep nodding when they feed you ridiculous made-up things about Amazon. The real problem is that Amazon is gaining more control of the publishing process, and they’re using that control to undercut the publishers’ inefficient business models.

While I bemoan the decline of the physical book, I think the average price point for new books is helping kill the publishing industry. I’ve never been the type to shell out $30+ for a new book that most likely I’ll read once then park on a shelf to collect dust. At the same time, I certainly understand the appeal of owning your own e-library with hundreds of titles in your pocket (provided they stay there…).

I’ve had a Kindle since 7/15/09 and have ordered over 50 books, plus magazines and newspapers. I did not my books on that scale previously.
An e-book is not worth what you can buy it for at Sams, Costco, etc.
A hard cover I can resell, or give away, I can’t with my Kindle.
I had not been to the library since purchasing my Kindle, I’ve now started checking out books that are priced over $9.99.
I’ll purchase no e-books >$9.99.
There are enough free books and fairly priced books to keep me busy.

I am a recent owner of a Kindle…had it for about two months now, and for the most part I have been very happy with it. I understand the publishers need to make more money from books, with these high advances these days, it only makes sense. However, I would hate to see Kindle/ebook users being exploited by publishers. There have been times where I have almost purchused a book on my Kindle, only to take a brief glance at the paperbook cost and find that it is at a bargain price much lower then 9.99. Ebooks do not go into bargain bins, and therefore publishers aren’t inclined to sell them for the low prices that many “failing” books eventually get to. I think that if publishers raise thier prices for new, bestselling novels, it only makes sense that they also bargain price those same books once they get relegated to the bargain bins of physcial book stores. I do not want to be paying 14.99 for a paperback that amazon is selling for a mere 4.99.

Same goes for out-of-print books. I hope that publishers realize that they never have to completely stop selling books that have been termed a market “failure.” However, given that the book is no longer available by conventinal means, it would make sense to give said book a bargain price lower then even the 9.99 that kindle books are typically sold for.

In the end, I guess I would just like to see the ebook market even out. New releases should cost more money then ones that have been out for ages and are no longer selling the way they used to. There should be low, steal-of-a-deal prices, along with typically high prices. Not every ebook is worth the same amount of money – why should they be priced like they are?