Diamond mine goes bust
Oh a comic book post!
People are talking about Diamond Distributor's minimum order numbers raising. Mostly about how it will have bone chilling effects on retailers and publishers.
We had a recent example in our household on how stupid these minimums are in some cases.
the_anti_hero ordered the book Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street we were later told by our local comic shop that it was canned by Diamond due to low orders. This was not a comic. This was a print book. Published by Viking, a reputable publishing house with a long history in the book world. One you can get at a box bookstore. You can order it at Amazon.com. A preordered copy at a local comic shop was a non returnable sale for Diamond that potentially took away business from the main competition to North American comic stores.
Wouldn't specialty books like this be a reason to overlook your policy? If nothing more than to keep your dwindling customer base from shopping elsewhere, perhaps? Or does Diamond really have it's head stuck so far down the hole that they are just going to ride out the collapse of the Direct Market, squeezing every dime out while they still can?
Obviously there are not enough retailers ordering "real books" to make a difference to Diamond. The sales blip may well be just a pimple on their arse. But I wonder, with the ever incresaing minimums Diamond is imposing. Maybe its time more retailers who carry diverse lines other than just Marvel, DC, and Image start creating direct relationships with those smaller companies and cutting Diamond out of the loop altogether? With the book market taking a fair share of lumps in the last year, bookstore distributors might want to start wooing comic book specialty stores with an alternative to Diamond. Holy Returnable Product Batman!
I've long thought about what I would do different if I had a store today. I was not bound by one distributor then. I would not want to be bound to only one now.
People are talking about Diamond Distributor's minimum order numbers raising. Mostly about how it will have bone chilling effects on retailers and publishers.
We had a recent example in our household on how stupid these minimums are in some cases.
the_anti_hero ordered the book Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street we were later told by our local comic shop that it was canned by Diamond due to low orders. This was not a comic. This was a print book. Published by Viking, a reputable publishing house with a long history in the book world. One you can get at a box bookstore. You can order it at Amazon.com. A preordered copy at a local comic shop was a non returnable sale for Diamond that potentially took away business from the main competition to North American comic stores.
Wouldn't specialty books like this be a reason to overlook your policy? If nothing more than to keep your dwindling customer base from shopping elsewhere, perhaps? Or does Diamond really have it's head stuck so far down the hole that they are just going to ride out the collapse of the Direct Market, squeezing every dime out while they still can?
Obviously there are not enough retailers ordering "real books" to make a difference to Diamond. The sales blip may well be just a pimple on their arse. But I wonder, with the ever incresaing minimums Diamond is imposing. Maybe its time more retailers who carry diverse lines other than just Marvel, DC, and Image start creating direct relationships with those smaller companies and cutting Diamond out of the loop altogether? With the book market taking a fair share of lumps in the last year, bookstore distributors might want to start wooing comic book specialty stores with an alternative to Diamond. Holy Returnable Product Batman!
I've long thought about what I would do different if I had a store today. I was not bound by one distributor then. I would not want to be bound to only one now.