I'm simply noting that for $8.25 they can make the same profit on an e-book as they do from a $25 hardcover. Why should they demand many times the profit margin for the same product in a different -- and for them, cheaper and less risky -- form? There are no remaindered e-books.

Publishers who move in lockstep on this raise the spectre of price-fixing; otherwise some publishers would attempt to buy market share by moving to rationally priced e-books that afford them the same profits as hardcovers.