Paul and Jodi have devoted their Write Anything columns this week to discussions about 2010 being marked The Year of the eBook and eBook pricing.

Paul’s article  The Year of ‘E’ discusses the place  and future of eBooks, eReaders and books in what is touted to be the year the eBook rises to prominence. Paul writes:

… whatever prominence eBooks gain this year, they will never replace physical copies of books. But we are not Luddites who dismiss eBooks and eBook Readers as a mere flash in the pan, doomed to failure. I see value in the eBook, and the eReader. I see a way to revitalise a flagging industry and change the game. But I see it as a supplement to, not a replacement for, the book.

Jodi’s article The Price of Pleasure challenges readers to readjust their expectations of what to pay for an eBook and how The Red Book came to be priced at AUD$12.00. She writes:

What I did readily identify, as I got lost in the Amazon/Kindle electronic miasma was the number of books listed at $3.99 and the fact that my time and effort, along with Paul’s and the other eight writers we’d worked with, was worth more than $3.99. It seemed like highway robbery.