"While ebooks, which are not things of beauty, have become more expensive; a new digital fiction release is often only a pound or two cheaper than a hardback."

"While ebooks, which are not things of beauty, have become more expensive; a new digital fiction release is often only a pound or two cheaper than a hardback." I'm betting has more to do with it than romantic notions of people preferring physical books. Given the choice of a fiction book for $10 in hardcopy or $9 as an ebook, I'll take the hardcopy. If ebooks (and movie downloads come to that) were priced the same as the physical copy minus the true costs of printing, distribution, warehousing, shipping, etc. they'd (I'm guessing) be closer to $2-5 and would sell far more.