The New York Times ran an illuminating piece yesterday by Motoko Rich about some of the average costs involved in publishing and what might realistically expected as a sustainable price for ebooks. The story is really about trade publishing so the costs that are used don't equally apply to the kind of publishing university presses do (peer review would be a cost we have that trade publishing doesn't, for example) but the story is still useful at hopefully educating the general public about what the floor for ebook prices might actually be and why. And it makes the important point that for all the potential savings of ebooks to be fully realized, publishers would need to stop printing ANY books. Is that something we as a culture really want to do?
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