In the battle between
publishers of conventional books and epublishing, the conventional
publishers are losing and may have permanently lost.
I would like to offer my opinion. Conventional book publishers are stuck in a mold that is moldy.
When I offered to let Random House publish my Seven Laws of Money (I had several publishers bidding for the rights) I required that the paperback edition come out at the same time as the hardcover. Usually the hardcover comes out a year earlier forcing up to 15,000 copies on libraries for some high demand books.
We immediately sold 20,000 paperbacks in the first two months while the 2,000 hardcover copies that were printed took a year to sell. The book still sells, forty years later.
Sarah Palin's book was sold at WalMart in hardcover for $10. Well over a million copies, immediately.
In my opinion all the options when lined up at the price most likely to sell the most copies would have ebooks between $5 and $8, paper (called trade in the trade) between $9 and $14, and hardcover $14 to $17.
Right now the market is way off the target prices that I think would sell the most books at the most revenue.