Amazon is quietly adding buy buttons for some books distributed by Diamond Book Distributors; the rollout seems to include several Marvel books that are on pre-order, such as Uncanny X-Men: Nation X, Book 1
Although it’s a sign that the Great Omniboo-boo mess-up that saw multiple books from DBD radically underpriced is slowly being corrected, the majority of books from Marvel, Image, Dark Horse, IDW, and a score of other publishers remain unavailable directly via Amazon, including such red-hot titles as KICK-ASS by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., the movie adaption of which is gaining buzz after a screening at SXSW last night.
At last night’s Emerald City Comicon festivities, DBD publishers were feeling, unsurprisingly, ongoing anxiety about the situation — and not just the specific losses from the underpriced books, but the overall health of DBD and Diamond. Speculation is that Diamond supplied a faulty data file to both Amazon and B&N, and the continued lack of buy buttons for DBD books could reflect an ongoing squabble over who will pay for the mistake, based on Amazon’s previous punitive measures against Macmillan. Given the potential magnitude of the losses over the sale, and Diamond’s current lack of deep pockets, it’s a troubling set of circumstances. The emerging picture is that rather than just an amusing mistake that left some fanboys disappointed, the Amazon Omniboo-boo could have longer lasting ramifications.
Adding to the speculation: as we previously reported, DBD is holding a sales conference with several of its accounts on Monday and Tuesday. That should be a jolly good time for all involved.
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The most troubling possibility is this:
Larger DBD accounts could be lured away by other distributors offering better discounts, sales staff, and book store promotions.
If the big guys leave, then DBD is left with smaller publishers, and smaller market share.
Would we see a situation similar to what caused the demise of Capital City?
I hope not, as DBD provides book store and library access to a plethora of graphic novel publishers.
I do not expect Diamond to go out of business, given the revenue stream from monthly comic book sales, but if that revenue stream trickles, then it could hurt the smaller publishers with tighter budgets.
Looks like title-by-title restoration right now. Not a lot of rhyme or reason.
But yeah, for most books, we’re talking 6 days without Amazon availability and counting and it isn’t clear explanations were being given. Makes it very reasonable for publisher to start investigating other options. Due diligence and all…
Many of Digital Manga Publishing’s books have also returned to Amazon. And pre-orders for some Marvel books. If the buy button take down is really for auditing purposes, it might make sense that unreleased titles and those from publishers not involved in the ordering frenzy be reactivated first. Here’s hoping that’s the case.
More Daredevil, Hellboy, Bone colored editions, and Fantastic Four has been put up as well.
Bone color is published by Scholastic, which is not a DBD client. Cartoon Books, owned by Jeff Smith, is, and the one-volume edition is still “unfriended” by Amazon.
What’s the highest DBD graphic novel on the Amazon GN bestseller list?
Looks like Kick-Ass at number 9 right now. Not available directly from Amazon at the moment…
And at the end of the day, people managed to save a whopping $50 bucks for several hundred dollars of crappy stories you could look up for free on Wikipedia without lifting you’re credit card! YOU GUYS WON THE INTERNET11