In the olden days a writer needed a publisher in order to get their book in front of their audience. But with Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Kindle and iBook stores, that’s no longer the case.

And while I could argue for their usefulness still, one thing I continue to see makes me hope for the DEATH of publishing houses in the near future…

..if you charge the same price (or even close) for a digital copy of a book as you do for a physical copy, you are ripping people off. But I see that happen over and over again.

And not just on new books, but older ones as well. Here’s a book from the 1990s that’s cheaper if I buy the physical copy — and if I have a Prime membership I even get free shipping:

I’ve seen several stories recently about best-selling authors refusing large advances on their next book because they know they can make more selling it themselves. It’ll be nice when more and more authors (and musicians and other artists) do that and tell the publishing houses to take a hike.