As a writer it's worth noting that production costs for books, either paper or digital, fall into a couple of categories:
1. development costs (the writer's time to produce, editing, etc.). This splits across all editions more or less evenly.
2. formatting/initial production - the tasks that fall into this category are different, depending on the kind of edition. The design for a paper book and the design for an e-book are not interchangeable, and publishers that don't understand this produce crappy looking e-books. Also the foibles and formatting of different formats (Mobi/Kindle, EPUB, PDF, etc.) mean you have to go through the exercise of formatting the book three separate times to hit all of them. The ebook does have significant production overhead.
3. Printing/shipping/storage, etc. - obviously this doesn't apply to ebooks.
Economically I suspect that the big publishers are still kind of thinking of the ebook as an afterthought, and basing their budget models on paper. They don't want to see paper sales shrink, so they inflate the price of the ebook to only a little less than the current paper release. So you see the 7.99 ebook and the 8.99 or 9.99 paperback. In small press or independents, you're more likely to see a 5.99 ebook and a 14.99 trade paper edition. (All those prices being approximate, and the topic of *endless* argument among authors and small publisher, as to where the best price-points are).
no subject
1. development costs (the writer's time to produce, editing, etc.). This splits across all editions more or less evenly.
2. formatting/initial production - the tasks that fall into this category are different, depending on the kind of edition. The design for a paper book and the design for an e-book are not interchangeable, and publishers that don't understand this produce crappy looking e-books. Also the foibles and formatting of different formats (Mobi/Kindle, EPUB, PDF, etc.) mean you have to go through the exercise of formatting the book three separate times to hit all of them. The ebook does have significant production overhead.
3. Printing/shipping/storage, etc. - obviously this doesn't apply to ebooks.
Economically I suspect that the big publishers are still kind of thinking of the ebook as an afterthought, and basing their budget models on paper. They don't want to see paper sales shrink, so they inflate the price of the ebook to only a little less than the current paper release. So you see the 7.99 ebook and the 8.99 or 9.99 paperback. In small press or independents, you're more likely to see a 5.99 ebook and a 14.99 trade paper edition. (All those prices being approximate, and the topic of *endless* argument among authors and small publisher, as to where the best price-points are).