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Originally Posted by AlexBell
I don't know what to think, since I've read elsewhere that others use the same ISBN for print and ebook versions.
Could you refer me to a ruling somewhere please?
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The International ISBN Agency is the place to look, but their web site seems to be down at the moment.
This problem has been brewing for several years. The current official position is that any separately retailable format requires a separate ISBN.
This was more of a problem when there were lots of competing formats. Now there are essentially two. ePub and Kindle.
ePubs can be sold through a variety of on-line retailers, and need an ISBN.
Kindle ebooks are only sold by Amazon, who assigns an ASIN, and don't need an ISBN.
Publishers who sell directly in multiple formats (e.g. Baen) should assign an ISBN to each book, not each format, and should probably also assign an ISBN to each bundle. But there's no real reason why they should until they also submit the books to other supply chains (e.g. iBooks store), when the ePub format will need an ISBN.