Looks like the e-reader war is carrying over into brick and mortar stores.
When Amazon announced their new full color e-reader, the Kindle Fire, they signed a deal with DC to distribute certain iconic graphic novels including the award-winner, Watchmen. Competitor Barnes and Nobel wanted to get in on the action and asked DC for a deal for the Nook as well.
An inquiry that DC ignored, offering an exclusive for the graphic novels on the Kindle Fire.
That has lead Barnes and Nobel to begin pulling physical copies of the graphic novels offered on the Fire in its stores. The list includes Watchmen, Sandman, Fables, and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
Barnes and Noble has sent out a company-wide email blast instructing all stores to take down all print editions of the DC graphic novels soon to be released on the Kindle Fire. The books will still be available online, but they are not to be sold on Barnes and Noble premises.
So let me get this straight: In order to protest being cut out of the loop electronically, they’re refusing to compete with physical copies?. So folks who want these books but don’t have an e-reader are now *forced* to go to a competitor…
Makes perfect sense to me.
And these are the people (business owners) that we’re supposed to count on to solve the job crisis.
Yep, we’re fucked.
I think this will turn out to be a bad deal all around. DC should be opening their product line up to all platforms. They’re going to lose a lot of sales on this. B&N is also going to lose by not selling even the physical copies.
And the customers are going to lose because of lack outlets to buy the graphic novels.
Yeah, this worked out real well for the sports card and video game industries. There is a reason exclusive deals are a bad all-around idea.
I agree, I can’t really think of any exclusive deal that really ended up working in the favor of either party.
Take the iPhone, I personally think it would have done even better if it had been available in multiple outlets.