How Amazon could force comics to go digital
Remember about a month back, we posted an article about Fox Networks and Time Warner Cable playing hardball over being carried?
Well, as of Friday books from Macmillan, including all sub-imprints like Tor books and St. Martin’s Press, have vanished from Amazon.com. According to the New York Times, the disappearance is the result of a disagreement
between Amazon.com
and book publishers that has been brewing for the last year. Macmillan,
like other publishers, has asked Amazon to raise the price of
electronic books from $9.99 to around $15. Amazon is expressing its
strong disagreement by temporarily removing Macmillan books.
Now with this as a precedent, let’s take it to the next level:
“Hello, DC Comics? Jeff Bezos here. Hey, how come we don’t have Batman: Black & White available for the Kindle yet?”
“Oh really? Do you know how many thousands of copies of Watchmen we sold for you last year? How many Batman and Sandman graphic novels? Don’t even get me started on Smallville DVD sets.”
“Let me spell it out for you. If we don’t start getting files for the Kindle by the end of this month, we’re going to stop selling the print editions of your books.”
Think it can’t happen? Are you sure?
