Former pubisher, author, web euntrepreneur and blogger Paul Carr has a great piece this week in his NSWF blog over at TechCrunch. He’s talking about the McMillan/Amazon/iPad tangle-up. His point is that, though the general consensus of the outcome is that it is good for authors, that the reality is that it is a thinly veiled attempt to protect hard-cover sales.

Of course, his main consideration is regarding authors published by major houses such as McMillan. I still think, as we discussed on the radio show this week, that more pricing freedom is better for indies in the long run. I think this is true because a) we can set our prices of eBooks higher if warranted and b) we can be competative – even undersell – the majors who insist on jacking prices to protect their non eBook sales.

In any case, definitely worth a read. Heres a little taste:

But now, with ebook sales soaring, and with the iPad looking to make them soar even higher, publishers are panicking. Thanks in part to deep ebook discounting by Amazon, but also because the same people who can afford hardback books are the same people who can afford e-readers, people are starting to buy ebooks where they once bought hardbacks. The only cash-cow remaining in publishing is disappearing, like CD sales for music, and DVD sales for movies.