Now that I have some money coming in, one of my top items to get is an ebook reader. And in my typical style, I began thinking of all the ways I’d love to use such a device to help me in my work. Unfortunately, in my typical style, no reader out there does most of what I would want to do.

I realized that what I really wanted was one of those PADDs they have on Star Trek. It can work as an independent device that you can use to read or write content. But it also seamlessly integrates with the main computer system, to retrieve and store data and to share content with others.

A couple months ago, I talked about why I believe e-books should be cheap. Big, scary (and scared) publishers tend to be raising prices on e-books, sky-high, sometimes charging as much for the e-book as for a hardcover. Responding to this trend, I advocated prices as low as possible, even under a dollar. Why then am I quadrupling prices on my own e-novels, starting next week?

1. Firstly, I never said that 99¢ was the right price for an e-novel. I only said that the right price was way less than the hardcover, and less than the trade paperback, and even less than the mass-market paperback. Mass-market paperbacks retail for $6-$8. So an e-book price as high as $6 might be palatable, given the right circumstances.

2. And these circumstances make a difference. Part of the reason e-books are worth so little is that publishers saddle them with DRM, and they bully readers into never sharing them with their friends, never giving them away, and—most importantly—never reselling them. Publishers in every media have always hated the used market and treated libraries with suspicion, believing beyond hope that if readers couldn’t buy used books and CDs, they would pay full price. The reality of course is quite the reverse: readers that become excited enough in a book to share it with their friends, those are the fans who spread fandom for the author and increase sales. That’s why my e-books never use DRM, and I don’t even mind if you share them with your friends. Knock yourself out.

I have a lot happening this week. The kids are out of school for spring break, which means I’ll need to find someplace else to work for most of the week. (Already this morning, I’ve been interrupted twice thrice four times with family issues. In between, I could hear the TV blasting upstairs and the music pounding downstairs, with me in the middle.)

I’ll need to find somewhere else to work so that I can complete the book reviews I’m ready to post. You see, I’m finally launching my new eBook Reviews blog. I managed to get the first review up this morning, and I’ve got others scheduled for the rest of the week. As you can tell from the title of the blog, I’ll be posting reviews of novels and memoirs that are available in electronic format, for e-readers and the like. Most of these titles are also available in paperback (and some in hardcover, too).

If you want to understand why I think eBooks should be almost free, let me start by telling you a little story (first related by Peter Drucker in his classic Innovation and Entrepreneurship on pp. 33 ff.):

Some decades ago, the chairman of Macy’s became disturbed by a trend he saw in his industry. Most customers had come into his store to buy clothes, but more and more, people were buying appliances instead. He didn’t know how to stop the rampant sale of appliances.

“Why do you want to stop them?” Peter Drucker asked. “Are you losing money on them?”

No. In fact, appliances had a bigger profit margin than clothing did. Furthermore, shoplifters rarely stole appliances, like they stole clothes. And appliance buyers rarely returned their purchases, like clothes shoppers did. Appliances were a money maker.

Yet he still wanted to stop selling them.