How does the ISFDB deal with multiple printings of the same edition?
A single edition of a book may have separate “printings”, which are usually documented on the so called “number line” (see the “Year” section of this Help page for more details.) The ISFDB creates one record per printing. The reason for this is that although in many cases separate printings can be almost indistinguishable, there are also many cases when they can be different, sometimes drastically so. Consider these two printings of Alexei Panshin’s Star Well. The first one appeared in October 1968, the catalog ID was G-756, the price was $0.50, the page count was 157 and the cover was done by Frank Kelly Freas. The second one was published in August 1978, it used an ISBN (0-441-78405-4) instead of an old style catalog ID, the price was $1.75, the page count was viii+211 and the cover was done by Vincent Di Fate. So here we have two books that are as different as any two paperbacks can be, yet according to the publisher they are two printings of the same edition! When an editor is ente
