Dark Day for Books?

I ran across this article on CNN over the weekend, and managed to find it again this morning: Dark Day for the Future of Books.

The author, who runs a self-publishing site for authors by the way, argues that the government's new decision to force publishing houses to stop colluding on book prices will mean the end of publishing houses. But that authors deserve more pay for their books, and that publishing houses shouldn't disappear even though they are out of touch (12 months for a book to be printed and marketed?!), and that e-book prices are too high.

Yes, the article is a bit all over the place. And I really wasn't quite sure what he was really going after, even after reading it about 3 times.

But, I do think the interesting point is made that publishing houses have for so long colluded to keep "real" book prices high, and they keep stores from offering too-low prices (like Barnes and Noble). Apparently that could all change. Will bookstores offer prices like Amazon?

And why are e-books so expensive?

I think this story about book and e-book pricing, and the future of publishing houses is going to be around for awhile - and it will be interesting to see the outcome.