ComicCon Stirs Up Thoughts About DC--B&N Showdown

ComicCon officially starts today with press night tonight from 4-7, so I'm ready with my Book Country t-shirt to head over this afternoon and start boothing it up. It's my first time at ComicCon and it's sure to be insanity but what I'm most curious about actually has nothing to do with the Con itself.

Last week, Barnes & Noble confirmed that they will be removing a number of DC Comics products from their stores due to DC's recent deal with Amazon, according to ICv2.com:

Cv2 has confirmed that Barnes & Noble, the world’s largest bookseller, is removing 100 of DC’s bestselling backlist titles from its 705 retail stores in the U.S. The action is being taken as a result of DC’s exclusive deal with Amazon on those titles for the Kindle Fire (see “Watchmen on Kindle”), making them unavailable for Barnes and Noble’s Nook e-reader. Amazon priced at least some of those titles at $9.99, or roughly half the price of the print editions (see “Kindle Launches Graphic Novel Price War”). It appears that the action, at least for now, applies only to the brick and mortar stores; BN.com is still offering Watchmen (at $10.87) as of this writing.

Barnes & Noble appears to be making an example of DC for other publishers thinking of giving Amazon exclusive content for the Kindle, and is willing to lose some sales to make its point clear.

We haven’t heard what the term of the DC exclusive with the Kindle is, but there will be a window of at least some months, including the all-important holiday season, with vastly reduced availability of those titles in chain bookstores. This will offer an opportunity for all of B&N’s competitors, and will undoubtedly hurt DC’s graphic novel sales through the end of the year.

As we wrote when this started, “DC’s deal with Amazon for the Kindle Fire is a potentially disruptive game-changer that could have far-reaching impacts on the market for physical and digital graphic novels in the future.”

Read the original article HERE

The piece goes on to provide a list of the graphic novels in question, including beloved titles like THE SANDMAN, THE GREEN LANTERN and FABLES.

With this big development, you can bet my ears will be open for commentary at the Con the next few days. I'm sure exhibitors and wanderers alike will have much to say...

Amazon Announces "Fire" Tablet

So, it's official: Amazon has released a tablet to compete with the iPad. And at a surpisingly low price point of $199.

Here's what Amazon had to say in their press release (courtesy of Engadget.com):

Millions of people are already reading on Kindles and Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world for four years running. Today, Amazon is excited to introduce an all-new Kindle family: three all-new Kindle e-readers that are smaller, lighter, and more affordable than ever before, and Kindle Fire - a new class of Kindle that brings the same ease-of-use and deep integration of content that helped Kindle re-invent reading - to movies, TV shows, music, magazines, apps, books, games, and more.

"We've now reached the magical two-digit price point for Kindle - twice: the new Kindle and Kindle Touch are only $79 and $99. Kindle Touch 3G is the new top of the line e-reader with free 3G - no monthly fees or annual contracts - and is only $149," said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Founder and CEO. "Kindle Fire brings together all of the things we've been working on at Amazon for over 15 years into a single, fully-integrated service for customers. With Kindle Fire, you have instant access to all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, the convenience of Amazon Whispersync, our revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser, the speed and power of a state-of-the-art dual-core processor, a vibrant touch display with 16 million colors in high resolution, and a light 14.6 ounce design that's easy to hold with one hand - all for only $199. We're offering premium products, and we're doing it at non-premium prices."

[...]

The all-new Kindle Fire - with all the content, Amazon's revolutionary cloud-accelerated browser, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, 14.6 ounce design that's easy to hold with one hand, brilliant color touchscreen, and a fast and powerful dual core processor - is only $199. Customers in the U.S. can pre-order Kindle Fire starting today at www.amazon.com/kindlefire and it ships November 15.

See the press release HERE

The press release also details the specific content-related features of the Fire, which Engadget.com managing editor, Darren Murph, points out seems to be Amazon's focus:

It's also quite clear that Amazon's hoping to make a bigger splash on the content side of things than has been made already by Apple, and with the deals flowing like wine, we wouldn't be shocked if it does just that.

I'm not sure how I feel about this whole "Amazon Fire" thing. The name in itself makes me crazy--I keep thinking of e-bookcases being set aflame! And while I feel like Amazon is slowly taking over the world, it is nice to see more than just the iPad out there and at a more reasonable price.