Friday, March 4, 2011

Too little, too late...again.

Both Upper Deck and Panini (sports cards) are starting new programs, where they are asking me to prove my brick and mortar-ness. This has got to be about the 4th or 5th time I've had to do this over the last 30 years.

Apparently, they want to shore up the actual, real stores, instead of the online discounters, and it sounds like they're really serious this time.

20 years too late.

Too little, too late, as usual.

I was promoting this idea 20 years ago --

By now, I'm skeptical that they can really eliminate the 'gray' market, anyway. Just off the top of my head, I can see an online discounter making an arrangement with a brick and mortar store to get their product.

I said No to the Upper Deck, because I'm not really interested in non-professional sport cards.
I've never liked U.D. anyway, I think they've had some rather loose ethical standards over the years, and I can't buy everything, so screw them.

Panini's demands are frankly ridiculous and overboard (among a long list, satellite pictures of my store, really?).

I'm betting that they will have to moderate their demands, and I'll just order up to the deadline, and then, if I have too, try to jump through all their hoops.


Anyway, this is a roundabout way to get into another subject.

The sports card markets inability to understand the importance of card shops, and the always too little, too late response to their demise, is why I think publishers are going have a very difficult time calibrating the changeover to e-books.

Mostly because, it isn't really about getting the mixture right.

It's about overall intent.

The intent needs to be to support their base of support -- the bookstores. First and foremost.

And they obviously aren't going to do that.

It's taken two decades for the card industry to really realize what they did.

Oh, they had glimmerings along the way. They'd throw us a bone here and there. Make the right noises.

But ultimately, either you believe in cards and card shops, or you don't.

Ultimately, either you believe in books and bookstores, or you don't.

They'll try to have it both ways, but I know they'll bend over backward to help the online purveyors, because they'll think that is where the future is....

Whereas, I think if you don't have a flesh and bone person talking to you about books, and can't pick up and glance through and feel and smell and touch a real book -- that all the air will go out of the balloon, so quietly and so slowly that no one will realize the mistake until too late.

By then, hopefully, I'll be sitting in my home library and picking books off the shelves and reading them to my hearts content....

6 comments:

RDC said...

I don't think so. Some publishers will not get it right. Others will.

If the publisher adapts a policy where only locked copies are sold and have a very tight copy protection approach then they will probably have issues.

The publisher that I mentioned before, Baen, was an early adopter of e-books and while they also sell through Amazon and other e-book providers they also sell unlocked versions directly through their own web site. They even have a free library where you can get free copies off of their backlist. They have found that their sales have increased considerably using this approach and increased the popularity of their authors.

Clearly the publishers will either have to ramp up how they market and some method of recommending books will need to arise.

Anonymous said...

Cards have always left me cold, so I view them with quite a bit of detachment.

By the way, a satellite photo is very easy to get on google maps of your shop.

Brett

Anonymous said...

collecting cards is the same-same as collecting dried goose-shit at drake park,
but paying for cards is even more bizarre,
somebody long ago told an urban myth that the card was valuable, like the cabbage patch doll, ever since guys like dunc have tried to dump the shit on fools, ...
dunc is smart enough to sell kit to the gold panners during the short gold-rush, .. I'll give dunc credit,
but dunc please don't tell me you buy the shit for yourself.
I mean cards don't even have intellectual value, they're not even interesting, ... just proof once again that you can always separate fools from their money,
.

Anonymous said...

The KOCH brothers must be stopped. They gave $40K to Scott Walker, the MAX allowed by state law. That’s small potatoes compared to the $100+ million they give to other organizations. These organizations will terrify you. If the anti-union thing weren’t enough, here are bigger and better reasons to stop the evil Kochs. They are trying to:

1. decriminalize drugs,
2. legalize gay marriage,
3. repeal the Patriot Act,
4. end the police state,
5. cut defense spending.
*
Yep, I agree these bastards must be stopped, if for no other reason, than to protect the AmeriKKKan way. :)

H. Bruce Miller said...

"satellite pictures of my store, really?"

Google Earth, Dunc.

Broofa said...

Google Maps, HBM. (Dunc, just send 'em to http://goo.gl/oTPgW )