Originally Posted by Chris

That doesn't make sense. A hardback is typeset, then a few months later the paperback has to be typeset again, but in all cases the paperback is cheaper, because the cost of production is lower (cheaper materials, higher volume, lower distribution weight).

Even if an e-book has to be typeset separately for Kindle, Nook and whatever else, the final cost of production is lower because there are no physical materials or distribution involved. The reason they aren't cheaper is because the publishers are trying to protect their market. In many cases they have large stocks of printed materials that they want to shift (warehousing costs money too). They may also be trying to protect favourable terms with high street book sellers. But whatever is driving the price of ebooks artificially high, it isn't the typesetting.