Reason To Buy? A Sports Star Will Sell You His Book With A Page Made Out Of His Blood

from the hmm dept

Shirshendu Mandal was the first of a few of you to pass along this story of a superstar Indian cricket player, Sachin Tendulkar, who has written a book. And, in figuring out how to sell the book, he's doing an... odd sort of "tiering" option. You see there will be a special edition of the book, which costs merely $75,000... and for that price one of the pages will be made, in part, from his blood. And here's the thing: apparently ten people have already signed up for it. As we've noted when talking about various business models that content creators can use, often it really depends on the person themselves, and the relationship they have with their fans. In this case, it seems pretty clear that this is a rather... unique offering, that works for this guy's fans.
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Filed Under: blood, books, reasons to buy, sachin tendulkar


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  1. icon
    william (profile), 21 Jul 2010 @ 1:58pm

    well, first thing that caught my eye is that it's "Indian" cricket player.

    This blood thing could be significant offering in a cultural context. So something that may seen bizarre to North Americans could be okay at other countries.

    I think the main point is still valid. Reason to buy could be ANY working reason, although in this case it's a bit strange (to us).

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2010 @ 2:31pm

    Clearly all the buyers are opposing teams looking to clone this player.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2010 @ 3:39pm

    What.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2010 @ 3:40pm

    Re:

    Perhaps they also want to be able to test for steroids...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. icon
    interval (profile), 21 Jul 2010 @ 4:15pm

    I'll pass on this particular bit of sports memorabilia.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    trilobug, 21 Jul 2010 @ 4:34pm

    Could be stranger...

    I hear for the sequel's limited edition he's gonna shit in a box.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    NAMELESS ONE, 21 Jul 2010 @ 4:39pm

    ITS the new necronomicon

    and you ink it in human blood
    it summons evil doers form hell like the riaa ceo or the labels of satan themselves of warner brothers, sony and the rest

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    cricket is boring, 21 Jul 2010 @ 5:22pm

    Re:

    yeah, agree about the possible cultural significance re: the blood. also, cricketers (and not just those from india) are MegaStars in that country.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2010 @ 5:41pm

    Re:

    Uh, "blood, sweat and tears"...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 21 Jul 2010 @ 5:43pm

    Kiss called

    They're suing for copying their idea. Or something. Whatever, they did it first.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  11. identicon
    DS, 21 Jul 2010 @ 5:49pm

    Re:

    Uhh.. KISS already did it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  12. icon
    SeanG (profile), 21 Jul 2010 @ 10:23pm

    Reminds me of the guitar Steve Vai did about 10 years ago, with his blood in the swirl paint job. Those sold for quite a bit less than this book.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  13. icon
    PaulT (profile), 22 Jul 2010 @ 12:19am

    Re:

    It's not necessarily anything to do with cultural mores and there's definitely some precedent in American publishing (e.g. some of the posters for Saw 3 contained Tobin Bell's blood).

    Still, strange? Maybe. Free advertising and a reason to buy the first printing of the book instead of waiting for the paperback? Definitely.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  14. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jul 2010 @ 10:59pm

    You know what I want to know is what are the regulations behind creating independent basketball leagues and releasing the videos online. Presumably you probably would need permits to film it just like with a movie. What other, including city and state, laws stands in the way of independent sports?

    What bothers me about sports, and part of the reason why I don't watch them much, is the fact that they remain covered by copyright even after being aired. That's stupid because then the only people who can have the video 100 years later are those who recorded it while it was broadcasting, unless people can buy it from the store. But not every game will likely be sold at your local store, 100 year VHS tapes will likely have very distorted quality, and one would be hard pressed to find someone who recorded every game of a sport to find a specific game that many people talked about. The difficulty for future generations to watch past sporting games due to our broken laws distorts our history and the history of sports and that very much upsets me. It's not like the copy protection holder gains very much by having each game locked up even after the game has aired. Most of its monetary value occurs when it airs.

    I would like to see the emergence of independent sporting leagues where the videos are released under a CC license. What laws stand in the way and where are these laws located (ie: city laws, state laws, etc...)? Perhaps more discussions of these laws could help build better organized future resistance against them and one day we can have sporting leagues where the videos are either not covered by copyright or are released under a CC license. Independent sports would be nice, people should quickly stop watching mainstream sports, seek independent sports with videos released under a CC license at least after the initial airing, and they should seek to correct any laws that stand in the way. We need to be more organized and better figure out specifically what laws make our lives more difficult and how.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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