An interesting article about e-book prices and how Steve Jobs made them more expensive.

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So Apple was conniving with the nation's big book publishers? At first blush, this probably sounded like the oddest coupling since Felix took up residence with Oscar. But strange bedfellows notwithstanding, that's the story out of Washington, where word is that the two sides colluded on a scheme to raise the price of electronic books.

Now it's payback time and book lovers -- e-book buyers, in particular -- ought to be cheering on the trustbusters.

Far be it for me to root for anything the government does, but in this instance I'll make a big exception.

In his biography of Steve Jobs, author Walter Isaacson offered this revealing quote from Apple's late CEO talking about his negotiations with the big book publishers about how to price e-books.

"We told the publishers, 'We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway.

"They went to Amazon and said, 'You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books.' "

In other words, take it or leave it. That took brass but, of course, it was vintage Jobs.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57393834-93/go-feds-e-books-are-way-overpriced/#ixzz1od9WxhuM

I do think it is interesting how all the e-book prices were below $10 until about 3 years after the Kindle was penetrated in the market and now everything seems to be $14.99 or higher. But what's more odd is that all sellers seem to have matched those pricing. That alone is not price-fixing unless it was jointly pre-planned. hmmmm