Forum - View topicCost/Profit of Licensing a Manga
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Kags_the_Great
Posts: 13 |
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I've always wondered this. In countries like Japan, China, and Korea, manga is extremely cheap to buy in the tankoban form. I've picked up manga from my local China-town general store for just under 2 dollars a volume. (Granted it's in Chinese...)
Now, in the United States, the LOWEST you ever see new manga go for is 7.95. Most new mangas now-a-days are going for 9.99, and in the case of most of Dark Horse's releases, all the way up to 15 dollars a volume (Berserk). Is it that expensive to license and release a manga? The paper and ink can't be that expensive, seeing as the asian countries are selling manga for so little. Does the licensing really cost that much? Or are they just taking us for all we're worth, since manga is a fairly new medium. |
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ZepysGirl
 Posts: 470 Location: NY, NY |
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Yes, licensing costs that much. And since not as many people here are buying manga as in Japan, they have to sell it for more to make up the difference.
I think I saw somewhere that it could cost somewhere around $3000 to license a series? That money has to be paid up front, without any guarantee that the licensee will make back that money. |
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Peroxid
 Posts: 210 |
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Well obviously, that some licenses are cheaper than others. I don't think that a SJ manga has the same license cost as an unknown manga, from a unknown mangaka.
The thing is, since there is less people buying manga in English, then in the other languages you mentioned above, the price has to be higher to compensate the whole cost (i.e. payment to editor, translator, printing and of course license). For example in France, where much more people reads manga, each Berserk Volume cost 6.90€ (wich is something like $9). |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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Yup. Most of that money goes to the artist, as manga are mostly creator-owned [though I imagine a portion of the fee goes to the publishers for the negociations], along with a percentage of royalties to the creator for each sale. It's pretty standard stuff. Why does it cost so much? Artist's have to make a living. Overseas licensing supplements the income of many lesser known manga artists, and helps pay for stuff like rent, food, assistants etc. When you consider how much you'd need to make a year to live in any big city, $3000 is actually isn't a whole ton, but enough to make a positive addition to the bottom line, especially once royalties and licensing payments for subsequent volumes come in. The reason we pay $10 is because the US/Canada are way bigger countries, so distribution costs are more, plus manga sales are lower than in those countries. It's easier to charge $5 a volume if you can sell 300000 copies than if you can only sell 500. Considering an original comic book [b+w or colour] costs about 3 or 4 dollars for just 20-30 pages of content, manga are a steal at 9-10 bucks for 200 pages of content. [mind you, I don't mind paying 3 or 4 bucks for a comic book, because it's original content, and 3 or 4 bucks isn't really that much. Really, $4 for an issue of THB or Rasl is AWESOME] And even with digital, there's still a lot of costs involved in making comics, and artists usually end up with less per issue/volume than they do with print volumes [which is why in the case of manga artists, royalties percentages tend to be higher on digital editions, so they make closer to the print ed's value] http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2011/01/quote-of-the-day-mark-millar-on-digital-comics/ Mark Millar (writer of Kick Ass) explains it quite well. This is why digital editions often cost closer to the print editions than fans would prefer |
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Kags_the_Great
Posts: 13 |
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I'm very surprised that people in France read more manga than people in Canada and the United States.
So, if I am understanding the posts above correctly, merely garnering the RIGHT to manufactor an English language version of a series is pretty cheap, but what gets the companies is the distributing, translating, and lack of sales? So they jack the price up to compensate for that? What sparked this curiousity in me is I noticed that Yakitate!! Japan is licensed. I figured it must be pretty damn cheap to license manga if a series about a boy cooking bread is on the shelves. |
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ZepysGirl
Posts: 470 Location: NY, NY |
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Um... no. Yakitate!! Japan is a good series, and so they licensed it knowing that they'd have a good chance of making their money back. And actually, since it's one of Viz's titles, it's a special case. Viz is owned by two Japanese companies, Shogakukan and Shueisha. Because of that, licensing costs for Viz are probably lower than they would be for other companies. If by "pretty damn cheap" you mean "only a couple thousand dollars", then yeah. >_> No one's "jacking up the price". They sell them in a medium between what we're willing to pay, and what they'd need the price to be to recoup their losses. |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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It's unusual for entire series to be licensed at one time - what usually happens is that a few volumes at a time are licensed. So that fee would more likely be for the rights to maybe three volumes. That way if a company drops a series because of low sales, they haven't paid up front for dozens of volumes they won't publish. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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Actually, I'm assuming VIZ's licensing costs are similar to most other companies- the Shueisha/Shogakukan aspect probably helps in terms of accessibility to their licesnes and reducing some costs, but the rights lie with the artist, so their fee is still the same/similar. Then with titles they've licensed from outside ShuSho, like Alita, FMA, Evangelion, or their Hakuensha Shojo titles, it's a normal system. Kags--- France is a country that's pretty big on comics, so there's a large existing market and shelf space for comics that was around before manga, which made marketing and selling manga there a bit easier. http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/01/04/french-market-increases-comics-production-by-5-5/ That's why they get archival editions of Ashita no Joe. Also, they have had a more extensive amount of anime on TV [called manga there as well], going back to the 70's and 80's with City Hunter/Nicky Larson, Albator/Harlock, and Cobra, which has helped build a demand for all kinds of material. Moomin--- good point. I know watching Vertical Ed's comments on twitter, that he balks at licensing long series due to the costs involved- shorter, finished series are less of a risk, with fewer volumes to license and an earlier finish without worrying about sales attrition by the time you get to Vol.30... the market being weaker/smaller apparently makes big risks like that harder to pull off [though they've done well with Black Jack- but that's Tezuka, so has a good track record]. |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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For longer series it's usually five or six volumes. This way there is room for negotiation if the series sells better or worse than expected. A series that doesn't do as well as planned may still be profitable if the costs of licesing goes down. But it works the other way around too. If a series does well (in either its original or translated form), the price of the license could go up. As for the prices in other countries, there are a lot of factors. In the US the MSRP is just that, a suggested price. Stores can sell manga for $2 less and still make a profit if they play their cards right. Dutch manga are almost just as cheap as the French editions even though the industry is tiny, but over here books don't have a MSRP. We have something called the 'law of fixed book prices'. It's illegal to sell books for less than the price that was decided by the publisher and the publisher can only change the retail price after a few years. So no 20% off coupons, no 3=2 sales, no 10% loyal customer discounts and practically no bargain bins*. *We do bookstores that specialize in remaindered books, but those are kind of like the darkside of the Dutch publishing system. For instance, a publisher might purposely damage their own goods in order to be able to sell them at a discount. |
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Richard J.
 Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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I mean, crap, I could license manga at those prices! 
I probably couldn't pay for the distribution or publishing though, unless I was doing a digital deal. 
I guess it's slightly better than the nutty "rip the cover off that book!" thing we've got going in the USA though. There's something very upseting about the destruction of books to me. |
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EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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Is it really that strict? In Poland it's called "suggested price", but the final one depends on particular seller. There are sales (n convents up to 50% for new ones), "3=2" actions in chain book stores, the second-hand marked live it's own way. And still books and comics are too expansive
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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It's an old law that still has many supporters today. In theory it protects works with artistic or academic value from being crushed by popular books with less cultural value. It promotes diversity and quality in bookstores. In a way it elevates printed books above other media. Atleast, that's what it's meant to do. It has some weird side effects. The publishing industry has turned into some kind of casino. Publishers publish huge amounts of books hoping for a bestseller. Bestsellers can be sold for a set price for years, so these books are extremely profitable. I'm just glad the MSRP of books in foreign languages aren't binding anymore. That would have sucked. Oh and Belgian laws aren't nearly as strict, so it's actually cheaper to import Dutch books (including manga) from there.
Books are destroyed over here as well. First the books are "verramsjt". The set price is dropped and the leftovers are moved to bookstores that specialize in remaindered books. prices may drop by 80-90% before the books are finally sold. Everything that can't be sold this way is recycled. Our system is different and there aren't many mass market paperbacks. We do have ultra cheap books, but they're the size of magazine or newspapers, meant for use in schools. They're called 'bulkboeken'. The cover is just as cheap as the insides, so it's kind of pointless to strip them. Many are printed on demand anyway.  
Oh and schools don't mind reusing these books. In 2001 we read a bulkboek printed in 1991. The 1984 in the pictures is actually from 1976.
It's the law. Only damaged and verramsjte boeken can be sold at a discount. Well stores can do whatever they want with the prices of used books, but you're not going to find a lot of used books if new copies don't sell. |
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Richard J.
Posts: 3367 Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis. |
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Not disparaging the country or its people, I just find these laws laughable. If the public is unwilling to support these works of so-called artistic or academic value, perhaps the problem lies in the works themselves? The automatic assumption that the flaw lies in the public and that they must be coerced into doing this bothers me greatly. Not that my opinion on that has much to do with manga. On topic: is there any data on the average costs for releasing a series over here? (Let's just cap the volume count at 6 for the sake of sanity.) |
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Tamaria
Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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Don't worry, I think it's silly and outdated as well.
Not really. Publishers like to keep those numbers to themselves. License costs - depends on the title Translation and editing costs - depends on the translator (some publishers go as far as hiring someone who is still studying Japanese and can't be considered fluent yet) Printing costs - bigger print runs are relatively cheaper Distribution - depends on the channels you have access to |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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I agree it can be upsetting (though also fun, if you're the bookstore employee and the book is one you don't like anyway) but it is only for mass market paperbacks. Other books get shipped back to the publisher and, while some again will probably be destroyed, others do end up in remainder sales. It all comes down to the fact that the publisher wants a bookstore to have multiple copies of a book on their shelves, to provide more of a presence in the store and thus have a greater change of being noticed. But if books weren't returnable than bookstores would only order what they think they can sell. It's definitely an odd system but on a whole I think it works well enough. And just for the record, manga is among those that gets returned intact, not ripped apart (at least not in Canada, though I think I can assume the situation in the US is most likely the same). |
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