Quote:
Originally Posted by dsvick
The ISBN and the price are only attached to each other if that is the way that the sellers accounting system works. The ISBN contains no pricing information in it, so any relationship between the two is created external to both. Meaning it is an arbitrary relationship that can be changed at any time by the person selling the book. If that was not the case then how could different sellers sell the same book for different prices?
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I stand corrected.
I gather that it's part of their internal accounting system, rather than any specifically mandated requirement. However, I have some sympathy with accounting systems that list books by ISBN and have a single data field for "retail price;" I can understand that it'd be difficult for a publisher to sort out how to track sales data for the same book offered at multiple prices over time.
Which doesn't mean I don't think they can/should do it--just that, as long as they believe ebooks aren't an important part of their sales, it's not worth their hassle.
The solution is to buy ebooks from small publishers who *do* release them alongside print editions, and send the occasional letter to big publishers saying, "I just bought from your competition because you're not selling what I want to buy."