Forum - View topicManga put out on as requested basis?
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firemedic911
Posts: 3 |
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I was thinking of all the series out there that have been cancelled or put on semi-permenant hiatus. I saw recently that some television series are being released on Video on Demand basis. I was wondering if something like this could be done for the manga series. Have a publisher put out a manga when they recieve a certain number of requests. That way, they are assured of selling what they publish and the readers get their series continued. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
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lys
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 1024 Location: mitten-state |
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I think last year I heard Tokyopop was looking into some kind of print-on-demand for their lower-selling titles. Nothing's come of it yet, but perhaps they've still got plans in the works? It's another of those things that probably requires additional steps be taken with the original licensor, etc, though. And the publisher would still have to take on the costs of translation, book design, lettering, editing and so on, so it still may not be a solution for every title.
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Scormio
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I was actually thinking about something similar to this awhile back. Like the company could say that they want to license and release a series, but they won't start the process until they get X amount of pre-orders of it. Granted, you wouldn't see it until awhile after you had pre-ordered it, but I think most of the fans of the more obscure titles that would go through this process would be happy just to get it, no matter the wait.
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Mushi-Man
 Posts: 1537 Location: KCMO |
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Well I know that on the Japanese side of the industry this is kind of how it works with manga (but not exactly as you've described it). Basically, as far as I know, manga continues to get made based on the requests for it's continuation. Apparently anthologies will have people vote on which manga should continue to get published and which manga should be dropped. But as far as I know it's been nothing to the extent that you're talking about.
I actually think this sounds like a pretty cool idea. Maybe this is a system that weaker publishing companies should implement. It might save them from making poor investments into titles that wont sell. And as well all know there are allot of companies right now that can't really risk investing in a flop. Also the OP mentioned a video-on-demand system and I think this is how most OVAs are released in recent years. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2998 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I think that instead of doing a print-on-demand release, the lower-selling hiatus titles are just getting a premium MSRP of $12.99 instead the now-usual $10.99 from TokyoPop. For example, B't X Volume 16 is finally getting released, but at the premium price rather than at the normal price, and I think there's another one with that price coming out as well. |
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HyugaHinata
 Posts: 3505 |
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I emailed Shawne from Rightstuf about it last year. He said that it could be coming soon, but I don't think anything's come of it as yet.
It would be a great approach though, and I think we certainly have the technology for it. |
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vashna
Posts: 1313 |
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I've thought about this before as well. I've seen other types of books sold on a print on demand basis, and it works fine. For that matter, at least at one point, I saw a company that sold DVDs that were manufactured on demand, but they warned it could take a long time for the customer to receive it. (The titles they were selling, legitimately I should add, were very old Hollywood movies. Pre-Great Depression Era.)
I wonder if a system like that could also help anime. |
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supes12587
Posts: 18 |
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Manga on demand will never happen. Do you have any idea of the cost of publishing even a limited run? It would be completely ludicrous for a company to do an on-demand run unless they intentionally want to go belly up. especially for something like manga in which you have to license the publishing rights from the japanese companies. It might work for on an e-book marketplace but to my knowledge the ebook market for manga is negligible. This is pretty much the same argument that's been going on on these boards for some time now about manga needing to pursue new media markets but sadly as a niche market it'll be one of the last groups to develop that kind of distribution.
and consider the markets that video on demand works for, premium cable television, the most recently released movies, lucrative sporting events (UFC, boxing, sports premium packages, etc.) the key factor among these being a substantial demand to view these. Manga and Anime don't have that sort of support. Any company that purchased the rights for on-demand manga or anime would have to defray the cost by charging an arm and a leg. its just not a viable option. |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Well, actually... Tokyopop have already launched a manga on demand service for some of their titles. They cost about 50% more than their regular releases. Haven't heard from anybody what the quality is like yet. |
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supes12587
Posts: 18 |
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Sorry let me rephrase, manga on demand will never last. Even the die-hard collectors will balk at a 50% mark up eventually. its a nice idea but its hardly cost effective for the company. I doubt they would break even with on demand titles, as i said earlier, not enough of a market to sustain it. |
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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Actually supes, it appears they're primarily doing it with titles that have already been compiled for print and paid for. This has mostly meant-
- Out of Print titles- stuff like random volumes of Mahoromatic, where they still have the rights to it, but there's no demand for an extensive print run. If their rights to the title allow it, they can just put out a POD title. - Completed OEL titles like Gyakushu Vol.3 they hadn't published in print [it was published on their website] due to the manga market retraction awhile ago. These titles were ready to go to print, and the artists paid, so all they had to do was drop the content into the necessary files and send it to the POD unit. Since the work's already done on these titles for formatting for print, it's basically just them selling a book at a time. I imagine all it cost them was setting up a POD facility, or setting up a contract with an existing one. This doesnt' appear to be the route for new licenses, but rather a way to keep existing titles available. It appears they're testing it with a small number of books for the moment. |
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supes12587
Posts: 18 |
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its still fairly expensive to do a single print, machines for printing, pressing, adhering, etc, have to be set up for each individual book. its not just the cost of licensing the titles, its the manufacturing, shipping etc, and my biggest point is that its not a big enough market to sustain an on-demand sales request. unless the companies are planning on losing money on these books to appease fans or jacking the prices up well beyond the 50% mark up someone mentioned earlier. there are a number of companies that losing money on on-demand sales won't hurt them overall, but are these companies willing to lose money on these titles? maybe in the short-term in hopes of creating loyalty but unless they see a big return in sales, the on-demand printings will probably be discontinued. that's just the nature of economics. and with the market for anime and manga in the states now, i don't see it lasting too long, I don't see consumers paying a high premium or companies intentionally selling at a loss. but hey i could be wrong.
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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http://www.lulu.com
It costs more per-book to print a book oneatatime, but Print on Demand would take a lot of the expense out of Tpop's hands- I imagine they've handed fulfillment off to a company like Lulu [of which there's lots. Amazon offers POD services too], who already has the technology in hand. We did a POD full colour artbook for our convention a few years ago- basically, we just compiled the book in Publisher, did high-res scans of all the artwork. All we had to pay was the per-unit cost to print the books, be it one copy or a dozen, with the price lowering as the amount went up. They turned out pretty shiny too- just as nice as a massproduced book. Since TPop's books are just reprints [or in OEL title's case like Gyakushu, titles which were just about to be printed], all the compiling is done, and they just basically send the file to the POD company, who keeps it on hand, and uploads it into their machine whenever anyone wants a copy. The $15 they charge includes the cost to make that copy, as well as their normal costs [ie- royalties], which is why it costs $15 and not $11. But since they only print a copy it once it's paid for, they're not actually investing a lot of money into it. So they're not selling at a loss- the titles TP's doing this with were already formatted for print for previous releases [these are OOP titles they still have rights to], and if 30 people want that Mahoromatic volume for not crazyAmazonusedprices, and are okay with paying $15 bucks for it [which might only cost them $7 a copy to print- that's about what Lulu charges for a book around that size,], there's $225 of sales right there, which only required them to take a publisher file they already have on hand and send it to a POD firm. By keeping it to reprints of books they already have rights to, they're not investing anything in licensing or production [unless they bought their own POD machine, but who knows? There's tons of printers they work with who probably already have POD services, so I imagine they just went with one of them. I imagine more info will come out about the program over time] Anyhoo, as for the $15 price tag, things cost what they cost, companies have to make money, creators have to get their cut too, other things most fans never stop to think about etc. etc. etc. Hope that all made sense and wasn't too ranty. I think a lot of fans just pull out the Jump to Conclusion mat rather then doing research onto things- I've helped put together PrintonDemand books before, and it's really not as complex as you fear. You basically upload your PDF of high-res art with your bleeds, pagination, etc ready for print, pay them for the copy, and they then print and mail it out to you. Not too complicated, so I imagine TP has an even easier time given these books are reprints [and thus already prepared for print], so all the work was done- it was just a matter of making sure their rights were okay for Print on Demand and otherwise unexpired [which is why I'm guessing we won't see it for every title in their catalogue, but probably for a fair number], sending the file to the people handling their POD operations, and letting us fans send in orders for the books. And $15 for a 200 page GN isn't really all that unusual- when you add in the fact that TP has to factor in royalties, and the higher perbook cost since it's one at a time, it makes sense. I imagine a lot of folks won't mind paying the extra 5 bucks to complete their collection. |
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population_tire
 Posts: 587 |
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I want Boogiepop on Demand
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Paploo
Posts: 1875 |
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Ask Seven Seas about it since they have the license to the title, though it looks like most of their volumes are still available http://gomanga.com/manga/boogiepop.php [the links look to direct you to their distributor's sales site, which if the book isn' in stock, gives you a list of sellers- kind of handy] I kind of think Omnibus editions of the manga would be nice [their publisher Adam lurks about these forums, so never hurts to mention that sort of stuff]. |
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