$10 Hemingway e-books: Oh, come on

Reuters this week carries an column headlined NetTrends: E-Book Story Fails to Unfold. It’s an informative column, but fails to address the big issue: Why are publishers so often charging as much for an e-book version as for a paperback? A series of Hemingway books will cost $10 each. The publisher is Scribner, and one wonders if those people will apply the same price to another Scribner author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose most famous work, The Great Gatsby, is available for free to Australians thanks to the wonders of public domain. See our earlier item about Gatsby, some other classics and copyright law.