[fjtorres]

Publishers used to sell direct in decades past.
They even sold bundles and grab-bags at heavy discount instead of just pulping them.
Several published newsletters and catalogs and most paperbacks carried listings in the back for other titles by the same author or comparable ones from the same genre.
So, I wouldn't say that expecting publishers doing what publishers used to do is a priori unreasonable.

Unless one starts with the assumption that today's big publishers can do no wrong.