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B&N Yanks DC Titles After Exclusive Amazon Deal
theodp writes "In response to DC Entertainment's agreement to exclusively offer digital versions of certain titles in Amazon Kindle format, Nook maker Barnes & Noble has begun pulling DC Entertainment's graphic novels off its shelves. Confirming the decision, B&N said in a statement, 'To sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms, and not have the eBook available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.' Nice to see the pair is still able to keep their feud fresh on the 11th anniversary of the 1-Click patent infringement lawsuit."
best comics around.
Your "in between" filler books, ash-cans, else-world type stuff and teasers are normally the things delegated to "not being printed".
Granted, these things can be awesome, back in my days of comic collecting the else-worlds and obscure stuff was generally some of the best, but they got low distribution and weren't the "meat" of the industry. Sounds to me like they were making an excuse to make a statement. If they're not going to offer them in print they're not going to offer them in print anywhere. These are the comic industry equivalents of the Battlestar Galactica "webisodes".
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That novels, specifically graphic ones, are just about the only form of media I would prefer to buy in a physical form. My ebook reader is reserved pretty much exclusively for datasheets, and that's only so I can search them.
1. Root your nook, install both readers, read any format you like.
-or-
2. Download calibre software (or use online version at www.2epub.com) to your pc. change the mobi files to epub.
Without knowing what's really going on, but it seems that someone there has decided that a principle is more important than the quarterly report, and I applaud that. It will probably benefit them in the long run (e.g. leverage in the next negotiations), but it's always interesting when a company gives a reason other than "it was the profitable thing to do".
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I think the rule of thumb that monopolies are bad and competition is good applies here. Barnes & Noble's decision shows integrity from my point of view. I think this sends a good message to publishers; in order to be successful in the digital world they should provide customers with more option, not less.
.: Max Romantschuk
I love DC's response: we're disappointed but we don't care. Were B&N not selling enough DC comics for them to care? Have to wonder why DC would completely cut ties with B&N to go with a new format like the kindle fire.
just my opinion but I do not like comics on a screen. Ebooks are fine, it's just words so i don't care how they're transmitted but comics are artistic, it's like having a painting vs a digital photo of a painting, they're not the same thing.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Since they can't uphold the "any time, anywhere" part of the promise, they decided the best thing to do would be to give up on the "any book" part too?
Is that why their stores inventory is so sparse now? Compared to last year, their inventories have shrunk considerably, the computer section is quite thin. I'm thinking any excuse to reduce volume myself.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I read it a little differently. They're not referring to digital-only content. They're talking about digital copies of print content. For example "Watchmen" would still be available in print presumably from anybody (except B&N who's voluntarily choosing not to carry it anymore) - while the digital version of the same title would only be available from Amazon.
Now, is B&N making a smart move? Probably not. But probably one that will be applauded by local mom-n-pop comic dealers. Is B&N taking a bold stand against exclusivity deals that hurt the consumers? Don't kid yourself - if they had ability to pull off such a deal, they'd be doing the very same thing.
Exclusive deals of any sort should be illegal. They artificially limit the market resulting in opportunities to raise prices (and who is not going to do that) and are anti-consumer.
For those that don't like the intrusion of laws into "free markets" then anyone engaging in exclusive deals should lose the protection of other laws like copyright protection. So go ahead and Region Encode and DRM protect that content but it loses all copyright or other legal protection.
DC is in the middle of relaunching their entire line, all 52 titles. Pulling all those DC graphic novels at a time when new readers have an interest in DC titles and might be looking to dig into their back catalog is just throwing away potential sales. Especially now that Borders is gone, BN is the only major book retailer left in a lot of areas so BN would have gotten those sales by default.
From what I've heard, this relaunch is in part aimed more at a "first time" younger audience than the current stereotypical- and now ageing- adult comic collector. (This makes sense- it would be unwise to rely on the grown-ups for their long term future. They have to get fresh blood in, and after all, it was this younger market that was the primary one for comics in their heyday.)
But since this is a "first time" market, you have to get them interested first, and if they're not already interested they're not going to be reading diehard comics fans' sites, nor queuing up to buy.
I assume that, had this incident not happened, that B&N would probably have been happy to promote this relaunch in-store and possibly in their windows, giving it more mainstream attention. How much this kind of mainstream attention and publicity is worth nowadays- particularly with a younger audience- is unclear, but I don't think it should be dismissed out of hand.
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It's a simple question, really. How much does DC comics does from B&N floor sales, and how much did Amazon pay for the deal?
Unless DC is run by idiots, they are not losing money on this, I'm sure.
And B&N forgot something. Doing a stunt like this is actually free publicity... I didn't know DC was an Amazon had signed this exclusivity deal... But now I do. Thank you for telling me, the consumer, where I can buy DC.
You're missing the point. DC opted to cut ties with B&N even though Nook Color has been out for nearly a year at this point. As for the difference between a painting and a photo of a painting, that's really not the same as the difference between a comic and a digital comic. As somebody that has spent some time painting and has some idea about printing, you don't lose anywhere near as much by digitizing a comic as you do a painting.
If you were comparing fine art prints with the digitized ones, you would have a point, but the colors that they're using in comics are chosen to reproduce easily, which greatly diminishes the choices they use. The rest of it is more a matter of conditioning than actual superiority.
Ok this is a silly argument for them to go and yank off something that is making them money, and bringing people into their stores.
Sounds childish to me 'little johnny has a new 5 speed bike so I'm going to toss my old 3 speed in the river and walk to school. That will show him! '
---- Booth was a patriot ----
B&N doesn't lock users into using their ebooks on only B&N sanctioned products, which is ultimately what this is about. I happen to have a Nook and Amazon is the only major ebookstore that doesn't allow me to buy from them and use the books without conversion and possibly stripping the DRM. B&N uses the same protection scheme and format as most of the ebookstores and so if I get sick of using a Nook, my next ebook reader could be made by somebody else entirely.
Ultimately, I have a feeling that it's more about Amazon using this deal to prevent their customers from using the books legally, remember B&N isn't just a book seller now, B&N sells ereaders and I'm guessing that they want to protect that as well.
I cant even buy their nook outside the US. Dear god let this walled garden crap be over soon.
Heh, you know, you are right! I'd much rather have a digital copy of a painting than the actual thing: The colors are generally more vivid(and can be adjusted on the fly), you can resize it to fit any screen, and you can have *any number* of paintings taking up the same physical space.
And that's not even mentioning how much /nicer/ a well-drawn digital painting is than the same thing done with traditional media - it's usually higher resolution and pixel-perfect(well, at some size, anyway).
How are you locked into using a Kindle device? There are kindle apps for iPhones, iPads, Android devices, BlackBerries, PC's, Macs, WinMo devices, etc.
There is even an HTML5 based Kindle app.
Well, I guess I'll just continue to buy my DC graphic novels at my local, neighborhood comic book shop... The place where the proprietors are enthusiasts and chit-chat about the topic when I go in and can offer suggestions and good discussions about them, making a much more pleasant shopping experience.
But now I do. Thank you for telling me, the consumer, where I can buy DC.
Provided, of course, that the customer reads Slashdot.
yea those comic books are individually hand painted for each copy. Honestly most of the time they dont even hit newspaper quality of print so the digital form, which is actually the source material, seems to be the way to go
There seem to be two definitions of ereader in general use. To some, myself included, and obviously the GP as well, the term 'ereader' means a dedicated device, not just "any device on which you can read an ebook." Despite Apple's best marketing efforts, the iPad is not a Nook or Kindle competitor.
I've been waiting for Marvel and DC to get off their asses and offer current content on iPad or Nook Color. I'd subscribe tomorrow to probably dozens of comics if they were available that way. I haven't collected physical comics since sometime in the 90's.
My guess is DC is going by market share of the Kindle and was offered a pretty sweet deal by Amazon who want early, marketable content for their Kindle Fire. It's too bad. I love Batman.
How would that be inconsistent with their goal of having B&N making any book available anywhere, anytime? They never said they wanted Amazon to be able to do that...
So a 10" IPS based iPad is not an e-Reader but a 7" IPS based Kindle Fire or Nook Color is?
They're kind of in-between, actually, and you'll probably find people who will claim the Nook Color isn't an ereader at all, but the Nook Color was specifically designed to be a reader not a general purpose device. B&N can even get a little touchy about it when asked why Nook Color doesn't do "X". :) The Kindle Fire seems to be taking it a step further away from ereader into a general media consumption device. It should be interesting to see which way the Nook Color 2 jumps. My money is on sticking to the reading focus.
By way of car analogy, calling the iPad an ereader is like calling a car a motorcycle. They may have overlapping features, but a motorcycle is a specialized device.
Or watch their local news? I know when this story first broke a couple of days ago, our local news had it plus multiple other locations. The companies involved are big enough names to have the story go beyond niche websites.
If you bothered to read my post you notice that those would be devices that have received sanctioning from Amazon, there is no guarantee that it will continue or that Amazon will continue to support it. With epubs you know that you're going to be able to find a device in the future that supports it. Sort of the same way that you can find WMA players than can play the DRM protected tracks from years past, assuming you can still get them unlocked.
I'm curious, precisely what happens if Amazon decides that it no longer wants to support those other apps? If B&N decides that it no longer wants to support them, I can just get a different epub implementation. At this point, I can use the B&N official application or Adobe Editions and I'm sure that Adobe is going to continue to support it as long as the epubs are out there.
It's a bit of a fuzzy line such as the difference between a netbook and a low end laptop. I wouldn't personally consider Kindle Fire or Nook Color to be an ereader as they lack an eink display and can be turned into a fully functional tablet with just a simple firmware flash. But, I'm sure there are folks that would consider them to be ebooks as they're primarily focused on providing access to ebooks with the rest of the stuff as an add on.
I found out about it from Neil Gaiman's twitter a few days ago, as they pulled all of his Sandman graphic novels.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Actually, since DC relaunched with their new "52" event, part of the changes included ALL comics being available in print and digital forms on the same day. So it's everything, from Action Comics to mini-series that are available in digital form the same day you can pick it up at a B&M.
My husband love reading comics on his iPad. He's actually planning on getting rid of some paper comics he has sitting around in boxes because he thinks the ereader version is better. It certainly takes up less space.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
On the other hand, did the B&N spokesman clarify how removing books from sale helps B&N to fulfill the prose "to make available any book, anywhere, anytime"? Surely its counter productive to that promise?
By definition of the exclusivity deal, B&N can't make the e-book version of the book available, and so if they're literally unable to make that version of the book available, how could they honestly say that they can make the "book available [on the nook], anytime"?
Or: "Hmm, B&N spending money advertising The Watchmen. Let me go buy it for my Nook. Oh they don't have it. One step closer to switching to a Kindle for me."
They'd be reaching more people than /. and telling them their eReader selection is inferior to that of Amazon's.
' 'To sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms, and not have the eBook available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.'
Errr ... so pulling the physical books off the shelf then makes those books available 'anywhere, anytime' ??? Um, doesn't that make them less available? I think what they meant to say was DC are being a bunch of *#@$%*** by helping Amazon create a Monopoly!!!!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
B & N had a terrible selection of what I was interested in (primarily Vertigo stuff), which often compilations 1,4,5,6,7 or some such (often with 2 or three copies of some). It was a terrible place to find anything except the most recent random Sandman book.
Always better to just go to the comic book shop where they had one copy of everything.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
I forecast that eventually, libraries will have a supply of e-book readers, already loaded with an e-book. Whereas before you signed out a book, now you will sign-out the e-book. There will be e-book clubs where users will swap pre-loaded e-books.
Publishers want to put a count and date code on e-books so that the book expires after a certain date or following a certain number of uses.
Sigh, what happened to the good old days.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada