Barnes & Noble Pulls 100 DC Comics. Not The Best.
Barnes & Noble and the rest of the rotting tangible world couldn’t have been happy when DC announced that they were cozying up to Amazon and their new Kindle Fire. B&N wasn’t content to quietly seethe though, and they’ve decided to give DC the middle finger. Probably to their own detriment.
CBR:
The move from print to digital for comics was always expected to come with some growing pains. But when DC Comics this past week announced that they’d move 100 best-selling graphic novels into digital for the first time exclusively on Amazon’s Kindle Fire, they may not have anticipated the stir it would cause in America’s biggest book store chain.
After rumors of the move that started with The Comics Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon, Calvin Reid at Publishers Weekly is the first to nab official confirmation from Barnes & Noble that the book seller is indeed pulling the 100 titles from their in store shelves nationwide. These titles include perennial hits like “Watchmen,” “The Sandman” collection of trade paperbacks and Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns.”
B&N spokesperson Mary Ellen Keating told the trade that “Our policy is that unless we receive all formats of a title to make available to our customers, we will not sell those physical titles in our stores,” adding that readers could still order the print books through BN.com or special order them to brick and mortar stores.
Jaime Carey, chief merchant of Barnes & Noble added, “regardless of the publisher, we will not stock physical books in our stores if we are not offered the available digital format…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.”
I can understand they’re pissed. However if they’re ripping comics off the physical shelves, and they don’t offer them online through their own service, aren’t they effectively funneling all of these people to Amazon? Right? It’s like they’re so aggravated at losing digital sales that they’re going to strip themselves of people who want to go in and snag a sexy hard copy of The Dark Knight Returns.