I do not know anything about the book selling business model, but I would assume that a significant portion of the price of a book is its shipping cost (gas ain’t cheap) and it’s printing costs (paper is more expensive all the time). I recently looked into ebooks and realized that they’re essentially the same price as regular books. While I’m very excited about innovative products like Sony’s E-Reader, and e-ink in general, I can’t see there being much of a market for e-books if the prices don’t come down.

I am sympathetic to those who are not Nora Roberst or John Grisham, and to be honest I have no idea what slice of the pie a typical author receives. I know here in Canada a best-seller is only a couple thousand units sold, so the potential for supporting oneself on domestic sales alone, even given a best case scenario, are slim to none. I would like to think that with digital sales there would be a new business model in place.

However, it is critical that the standards not be tied to devices — my example of iTunes and Zune is just one way that consumers are frustrated. These formats are designed to lock consumers into hardware in order to access the software they have legally purchased. Lack of portability is a solvable problem and needs to be addressed before consumers take the decisions away from the entertainment companies.

The music industry learned this the hard way — they resisted, they fought, and they dithered. By the time the industry caught a clue, the consumers had adopted a de facto standard and pretty solid processes for accessing music. Since then, the industry has tried and tried to, well, shut the barn door. It’s really too late. The motion picture industry is doing a slightly better job of the whole thing, but, again, look at services like Amazon Unboxed — it’s device-specific while consumers are seeking freedom from that construct.