E-books and e-book readers are a relatively new development. All the same, they seem to have been adopted very rapidly by the public. A good deal of the credit for that must surely go to the Amazon Kindle reader – in particular the Kindle 2.0 which was launched in February of 2009. Amazon’s upgraded third generation Kindle was unveiled in August of 2010 and, despite doom laden predictions for the Kindle following the launch of Apple’s iPad, is selling more quickly than ever. There’s little doubt that it was the Kindle 2.0 that really helped e-books to take off.

Equally important was the large number of Kindle books available. Amazon has always been well in front of the following pack when it comes to the number of titles available. At the moment they have more 750,000 Kindle books available on their website – and those are just the paid titles. There are more than 1.8 million out of copyright titles which can be downloaded free of charge.

However, although the public seems to have taken to e-books, it’s debatable if the same can be said for many of the major publishing firms. The introduction of e-books has totally changed the traditional publishing cycle. E-books are not only cheaper than traditional printed books – there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be released alongside the conventional printed hardback version. There’s no need to wait months for the paperback edition to appear, the e-book version is available immediately.

Obviously, having a cheaper version available at the same time as the hardback is something which could impact upon the sales of hardback books. According to Amazon, they are currently selling 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardbacks. This seems to have created a bit of a stir for many of the big publishing houses. They have already crossed swords with Amazon regarding the pricing of e-books.

Publishers such as Hachette, Penguin and Harper Collins recently adopted the “agency model” for their e-books. In plain English – the publisher sets the sales price, not the retailer (Amazon). This has seen e-book prices rise – in some cases to the point where they cost more than the hardback version.

Kindle users retaliated quickly by awarding “one star” reviews to books where they felt that the Kindle book price was excessively high. Some fairly terse comments were left on Amazon’s website – mainly aimed at the publishers – and it was suggested that prospective customers boycott both the hardback and the Kindle versions until prices are fixed at more reasonable levels. Some prices have already fallen.

It seems to be an almost suicidal tactic by the publishers to adopt such an artificial method of raising prices. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to suppose that e-book readers owners read a lot of books. If you only read a book a month then you would hardly invest in an e-book reader would you? In other words, e-book reader owners are the target market for the major publishing houses.

It seems obvious – just even – that e-books should cost less than traditional books. In addition to the lack of paper, ink and bindings, they have virtually no delivery fees associated with them. They are also more environmentally friendly – even when the materials used in the e-book readers themselves are taken into account. It seems likely that the owners of e-book readers could work this out and that they would, quite reasonably, expect prices to be set accordingly.

Whilst it’s not out of the question that the publisher’s tactics may help to maintain their profits in the short term, they run the risk of antagonising their best customers by adopting this approach. Unjustified price levels seem likely to annoy the buying public and, after a few one star reviews and public calls for buying boycotts, authors would presumably also be somewhat disenchanted. Publishers have every bit as much to gain from the e-book revolution as the public. The savings apply on both sides of the fence, publishers save money – which should be passed on to the public. If publishers can modify their business model to accommodate e-books, then they will continue to enjoy success. On the other hand, if their desire for short term profits inures them to the possible opportunities offered by this new medium, they will be rejected by both their authors and their readers.