eBook Readers are the new iPods so much so that this holiday season they expect eReaders to be the most purchased gift. Now this bodes well for the number of players in this market. But what happens after you’ve gotten yourself one. I recently bought the Barnes and Noble’s nook when they slashed the price for their Wi-fi only model to $149. I was pretty excited after reading numerous reviews edging the nook over its competition – the Kindle.

Now getting you to buy the eReader is just he first step these sellers are hoping for. The biggest proponents of the eReader and eBooks fad and even common sense would lead you to believe that eBooks would cost less than their paper counterparts since the price of printing will essentially be eliminated. And then you go take a look at Amazon or Barnes and Nobles and try to get yourself a copy of one of your favorite books. The odds are, the printed version is cheaper sometimes by a whole lot. For example I was trying to buy a copy of “Billion Dollar Lessons: What you Can Learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last Twenty-five years” and the price at B&N ranges from $3.99 (for a paperback) to $18.99 (for the digital version). Thats a whopping 375.93% premium to procure the digital version! Now I don’t know how this is supposed to economically justifiable not to mention motivate me to buy more digital copies.

It must be said that most books are within the $9.99 to $13.99 range but when it costs more than the printed version one does justifiably get angry. Amazon, B&N and Borders should most certainly evaluate their pricing strategy. I am all for authors getting a good cut for their work and everyone making a buck but this ridiculous discrepancies will only harm everyone than do any good.