Amazon Fire Causes Feud Between B&N and DC Comics

The yet-to-be-released Amazon Fire is causing a spat between Barnes & Noble and DC Comics. “Barnes & Noble yanks Kindle exclusive comics from its shelves” by Matt Stuart and Stacy Cowley reports that DC comics recently announced that 100 of their titles would be digitally available exclusively through Amazon. The titles will be digitally released November 15, the release date of Amazon Fire, the Amazon tablet. Barnes & Nobles decided they would ban those 100 titles from their stores.

Jaime Carey, chief merchant of B&N is quoted in the article saying:

“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 e-book available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.”

According to article, the bookstore has pulled the 100 titles this week, but the titles are available via the website.

The first time I read the news I thought “is B&N cutting their nose off to spite their face?” In other words, is banning 100 DC Comics titles a smart move? While Barnes & Nobles is the only major bookstore chain left, they are not the only vendor for comic books. There are online stores, media stores that stock comics, and comic bookstores. Banning a book pushes it’s fans to go elsewhere. In the midst of Borders shutting down, there is no guarantee that B&N can stay alive.  Considering they are touchable, it seems banning titles is counterintuitive to survival.

The article asks “Will DC Comics ever make its titles available through other merchants, including B&N’s Nook store and Apple’s iBooks shop?” I would normally think the answer to be yes but DC Comics might play the same game and decide to make their comics digitally available everywhere except the Nook.  DC Comics rep gave this statement: “These titles are currently exclusive to Amazon… We continue to have discussions with our other valued partners as digital is a key growth area for DC” The keywords are “currently” and “valued partners”; DC is not going to keep their titles exclusive with Amazon and will seek other digital vendors. The question: is Barnes & Nobles considered a valued partner of DC Comics considering this 100-title-ban?