Touching on one of the most controversial issues in 21st Century publishing, Barnes & Noble has set e-book prices to compete directly with Amazon.com, Inc.’s prices.

Information Week reports that eReader–one of Barnes & Noble’s digital book properties–sent members an email setting the majority of e-books are now priced very near to Amazon’s $9.99 standard price. That $9.95-9.99 price point drives Tina Brown (and some other publishing types) batty.

Here’s the eReader pricing scheme, from the article: “All new eBooks are $9.95 or less. No eBook over $12.95. They aren’t moving all ebooks to $9.95 or less, only newly published ones. Cutting to $12.95 is a substantial cut for many older books though. All books on the New York Times Bestseller list are $9.95, whether it is new or has been there a while.” (Via Publishers Weekly)