Hey, everyone! David Taylor is in the very first paragraph of this article about Waterstone’s buying Ottokar’s!
David Taylor is worried. A fan of Manga, the Japanese comic books, Taylor believes that this month’s controversial £63m purchase of Ottakar’s, the book chain, by Waterstone’s, its larger rival owned by HMV Group, means that he will no longer be able to buy his Manga books at Ottakar’s.
“This is a huge loss. Ottakar’s have been the Manga bookstore of choice in the UK for quite a while now,” Taylor writes on Love Manga, a weblog dedicated to the medium.
And if David can’t get his manga, he can’t write about it, which would cause the second outbreak of Love-Manga-jones in less than six months. Fortunately, Gerry Johnson, the managing director of Waterstone’s, realizes what a good customer David is:
“From a commercial perspective, we would be nuts to damage that,” he says.
Well, actually he’s talking about all the niche customers, but David probably accounts for a hefty percentage. The article continues with a bunch of business stuff, which is mainly interesting if you’re a book retailer. But the bottom line is that the new regime will continue to offer a lot of choice, and David will still be able to buy his manga. Which will keep the rest of us happy as well.
How strange… that’s the first I’ve heard about this… ^.^