This is interesting. I predict that in the quest for competetiveness, once there
are more than a half dozen ebook sellers on the web, the advantage will shift to
the writer, who will be able to auction off rights to publish his/her book, in
whole or chapter by chapter, and that this competetiveness will also force
etailers of ebooks to drop the price of their ebooks down to maximize sales
(which assumes that a mass market is created for ebooks).
Since I am involved in the electronic publishing of books (the software manuals
of Datamann), I have a pretty damn good idea of what the true costs are. Since
Datamann's software is used for the management of mail order (and now etail)
businesses, I also have a pretty good idea of the kinds of costs web etailers
and traditional mail order houses have.
I predict that the cost of a major novel in ebook form will drop to
approximately three times the author's royalty, or less, within five years.
Mike Lorrey
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