E-books, pricing, availability, frustration redux redux

To combat (I imagine?) the newer publisher strategy of making some e-books available only in Barnes and Noble e-reader format (and not Kindle at all), I believe Amazon is selling cloth or paper versions of the books at Kindle prices.




Thus, the latest book in Ariana Franklin's Mistress of the Art of Death series is priced as follows:

Barnes and Noble
E-book: $12.99
Cloth: $18.68

Amazon
E-book: None available
Cloth:$9.99. Yes, that's NINE NINETY NINE.

Another example: Nora Roberts, Bed of Roses, paperback. Both sellers have the book in paper and e-versions, but Amazon's prices are still less expensive, and the paper version and e-version cost the same.:



Barnes and Noble
E-book version: $12.99.
Paperback: $9.36
ISBN-13: 9780425230077
Publisher: Penguin Group
Pub date: October 2009

Amazon
Kindle version: $7.35
"Deckle edge" paperback version: $7.35
ISBN-13: 978-0425230077
Publisher: Berkeley Trade [owned by Penguin Group] (October 2009; original edition)

I don't know what to say about this other than
1. E-book buyers could benefit from searching both Amazon and B and N, because there is a price war.
2. I've got the insanely cheap cloth version of the Franklin book at home now.

Finally, an article
"In some circles, the iPad was known as 'the Jesus tablet.'"
--Ken Auletta, Publish or Perish: Can the iPad topple the Kindle, and save the book business? from The New Yorker, April 26, 2010