Color me a “genre” Stephen King fan.  I love all of his non-horror stuff.  “Dark Tower” is among my absolute favorite series of books.  I have them lining the shelves of my bookcases at home (much to my beloved’s chagrin).

The book.  Opening the cover.  Turning the pages.  Manhandling the dustjacket as it keeps slipping off.

These days, the book is becoming a bit of a dinosaur.  Ok, Barnes and Noble are still STOCKED with those dinosaurs.  But e-books are becoming all the rage.

Kindles, iPhones, the Nook (B&N’s version of the Kindle), etc. are all converging on this emergent market.  Books produced far cheaper and more quickly.  And obviously much more easily accessible than that 5 minute drive over to Border’s.

Easier for the publishers, easier for us.  Right?  Not so much.

King’s latest tome, “Under the Dome”, will be released naturally as an e-book as well as in print.  It tops out at a whopping 1088 pages.

That print book will retail for $21.00 at Barnes and Noble.  Nominal price for a new hardcover.

And while many new e-books have been going for $9.99 (referenced in this Yahoo article), King’s “Dome” will have a whopping $35 price tag.

Yeeeouch!

Why oh why would the publishers do this?  Could it be they’re testing the ebook market with a proven commodity (King) to see what the threshold will be for consumers?

Also confusing is the release date of the book:  December 24.  For all intents and purposes, after the holiday shopping season.  So, you put out your ebook basically after most everyone has spent their disposable income for the year AND put it at such a high price as to further dissuade anyone from getting it?

Perhaps the business model the publishers are using is that most won’t buy e-books as Christmas presents, but rather receive AS gifts in the form of vouchers or gift cards.  Meh.

The silliest part of all this though is the publisher’s actual reasoning for the pricing.

Says Simon & Schuster’s Adam Rothberg, “Given the current state of the marketplace and trends in digital book pricing, we believe that this is the most appropriate publishing sequence for this particular 1088 page work of fiction.”

The current state of the marketplace?  THE CURRENT STATE OF THE MARKETPLACE?!?

Have they not looked at a newspaper lately?