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juj1n: Yes, I think this is a major marketing problem for ebooks in general, and I don't know what is driving this, the publishers, the retailers, or what. A dollar up and down is about what I would consider acceptable for different retailers (with exceptions, of course). These huge price differences make no sense to me. I can only think that the publishers have different agreements with the two companies, or B&N is convinced they can somehow lock in readers and charge whatever they want (hopefully they will get over this, if it is the case), or they have some sort of internal debate.
I find it hard to believe that the sellers (B&N, Sony) have control over their prices, because that would mean that they are begging Amazon to eat their lunch and give them a wedgie. Sony, especially, since they don't have a pbook business to "protect".
I would guess the first to go multi-format (like Smashwords) or DRM-free with decent prices will eat the market. My main objection to DRM is that it makes format-shifting impossible.
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