I assume he knows what those costs are as well as you or I may know them, as he ran the worlds largest book publishing company for many years. He's the one I'm depending on to inform my understanding of the costs of “a book” vs. the cost of manufacturing and distribution of a physical product — and the wastes related to current book industry business model.

I don't understand what you mean. When I say charge for something, I mean don't give it away for free. Do I need to explain this again: If a book is not being printed on paper, don't charge me for the printing and paper.

Dear publishers, charge for where you bring value — discovering, editing and marketing great authors.

Doing all that isn't free, you know.

The competition is already in the race with great eBooks, often by new authors, priced in the $5 range. And the author gets a lot bigger slice of the action than the pittance the NY houses can afford for hard backs and mass market paperbacks. I'll beat our own drum for AKW Books (akwbooks.com). We're a new house, but with a more aggressive model aimed at lower prices, standards every bit as high as the NY publishers, and a growing stable of really talented authors. We're not a threat to Random House — YET.

And we're not alone. Other small houses are getting into the act along with Google.

And just to add to the big publisher's worries is an army of self-published authors. Not all of these are worthy of publication, but some are, and many of them are willing to do all the work necessary to get their books into the hands of the reading public. Most are pushing paper at fairly high prices (short runs cost more), but some are getting into the eBook arena.

eBooks still lack a big audience because the portable readers are still too expensive. But Taiwan is getting into the act and eventually lower cost handheld readers will arrive along with Heaven only knows what new technology that could change the whole ballgame.