After the deal went public, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million (the third-largest bookseller) pulled the 100 graphic novels that went digital-exclusive from the shelves in their physical stores. And that sucks for everyone.
As a consumer, it stinks all over the place. For one, if you’re on any platform other than Kindle, you’re screwed if you want to read popular books like The Watchmen, The Sandman and Y: The Last Man. But then if you say screw it, I’ll just pick it up at the store, you won’t find it in the physical stores either. And if you’re just a comics fan, there’s a chance that comics being off the shelves in bookstores could stunt the growth in a small-margin industry enough to get some of your favourite books cancelled.
And it doesn’t even make great sense for Barnes & Noble. For years, comic publishers bent over backwards to get their books into the brick and mortar stores, but with digital doing so well, they’re actually driving more people to physical stores than ever before. So B&N is basically just turning away business (maybe yours) to fire a warning shot at Amazon and other publishers considering exclusive deals. In the meantime, you can (and should!) go to your local comic shop for your books. Or, ironically and not unexpectedly and gosh-Barnes-&-Noble-is-dumb-ly enough, get them from Amazon. [NY Times]
Parker
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 1:23 PMWhy would you buy comic books from B&N?
Big Windows
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 2:32 PMI refute your first contention. I don’t think comics on tablets are great… The screens on tablets are just a touch too small to make them great and at this stage there is little added value just digital reprints. When the screen grows a little (current tablet shapes with smaller bezels would help this) or the actual device grows and thins out a little then comics on tablets will be great. Comics are a visual medium and the art of comics suffers when reduced in size… Pan and scan options are also virtually useless because page layouts also embody story flow… Sorry but your first contention is a bad assumption…
Robin
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 2:04 PMCan I just point out that having Comic Books on the Kindle Store can benefit tablets just as much.
Say “if you’re on any platform other than Kindle” as much as you want, but Amazon has free apps that allow you to read Kindle books on any iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, or HTML5-compatible device.