Books

Thank You!

Posted by Merrow on Jan 2, 2011 in Blog, Books, Daily Drawing, Daily Life | 0 comments

Thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes via facebook, livejournal and twitter! They were much appreciated. ^_^ I had a nice, if boring, birthday. I stayed in my PJs all day, re-read Robin McKinley’s Beauty and Sharon Shinn’s Summers at Castle Auburn and count it as a good day all around. I also did a load of laundry, which seems like a very un-birthday thing to do. I still did my sketch for the day:

That’s the pose I spent most of my birthday in, flipping channels and watching tweetdeck update. I also worked a bit on the next chapter of Discoveries. Tomorrow I’ll finish up a button commission I’m working on (a geekily fun one), and then have to get down to some school work. Ick, Statistics!

Thanks also to people who also answered my question yesterday on how they organize their books (mostly people weighed in on my livejournal) . I’m still interested in other people’s methods as I decide what I’m going to do.

Happy New Year! Time to spring clean, or at least organize

Posted by Merrow on Jan 1, 2011 in Blog, Books, Daily Life, Fandom | 0 comments

I’m having a good year so far, how about all of you? ^_^ I went to a party at a friend’s last night and got to reconnect with a lot of people I hadn’t seen for a while. Then today I spent the day napping and reading manga. Totally unproductive but really really nice.

I did want to try to resurrect a couple of ideas I failed at last year. One being to draw something every day. The little bunny on this post was my drawing for today.

Now for a question for you manga/book people. Some of you might have seen my tweet/facebook status about my new shelves. The link will take you to a bad cellphone picture where the light from the windows make the shelves look ethereal and mystical.

Being that my friends are mostly book-nerds, I wasn’t surprised when one of the comments was about how I planned to organize the books in my new library. (It was also one of the first questions I got from both the person who installed them and the first person who saw them up.) I think everyone I know has a closet librarian in their heart.

Actually, of the three people who’ve asked one is currently a school librarian and the other a daughter of a librarian… so my source group might be a little slanted towards a book organizing bias.

But back to the question… how should I organize my books? Each shelf holds about 110 (115 if I really pack ‘em tight) of manga. I’m thinking that will organize them by author… but on my old bookcases I organized them by how long the series was and if it was a “complete” or on going series because it made it easier to shelve new books. I had two for “completed” series, two for series with 15 volumes or more that were on going, one for series that I have for series 14 or less, and one and a half for “one and two volumes so far” series (the other half of the one shelf were unread books with one shelf dedicated to volume 1s and the other for later volumes of ongoing series).

I know it sounds complicated, but since most of my books were double or triple stacked on the shelves it made it easier to have the long series together where I could layer the first 10 or 15 behind the newer volumes since I probably wouldn’t want to read them again and the series I was actively adding new books to all together so if I had to re-arrange to lend or add in new books I wasn’t having to move around the completed or big series.

This of course all refers to my manga collection, the lion’s share of my books. I don’t tend to horde “regular” books as much as manga because they’re easier to replace or find in a library.

With my new shelves, I should be able to put all my books out in one layer when the shelves are all done. The shelves up currently only hold about a third of my manga collection, but two other shelves are in progress making for 7 shelves on that wall with two of them being longer (going above and below the window) and 5 mini shelves for the other side of that window. That should allow me to put about half my manga collection up on one wall, which is plenty to start organizing and inventorying.

I really need to inventory, I’ve already found four duplicate volumes bought in the last couple of months because my book database isn’t up to date.

So how do you all organize your books? By title, by author, by genre, or size (either size of book or length of series)? I’ve tried all of those at various times with some problems each time, but I’m interested to hear other people’s takes on it. I know some of you out there have as big or bigger collections then I.

Magical Manga Machine? (of the future!)

Posted by Merrow on Oct 8, 2009 in Blog, Books, Fandom, Manga | 0 comments

Image by gruntzooki via Flickr

I was reading an article on ICv2 that introduced me to a magical device call the Espresso Book Machine. It’s a kiosk that will print on demand a library quality paperback book in less then 2 minutes.  (300 pages they claim, in less then 4 minutes) There’s a video on the website that shows it in action. The ICv2 alludes to how it may change the book market, but seeing as my obsession is manga my mind immediately went to how it could effect the manga market. Most of what follows is speculation on how this could be used in the future, since the technology isn’t quite there yet. (Though the  machine is already being deployed and in use in some places.)

One of the major hurdles for current niche publishers is making the cost of printing and distributing small market title affordable. The costs are high to a small return. But what if you didn’t have to front the costs print or distribute your book?

Sure, you could go digital. But readers have been resistant, even with devices like the Kindle and and the Sony E-reader. It’s just not the same as holding a book in your hand.

The Espresso Book Machine meets the problem in the middle. Secure digital PDF versions of the book that are printed out on demand to anyone using the kiosk. Imagine being a small book publisher and your book is on a device in your local grocery store, next to the DVD rental machine. Imagine in fact that it is in EVERY grocery store, and anyone can print it out right when they want it. No shipping costs or delays! They don’t have to track it down in some specialty shop, or special order it at the book store, or order it online. Just choose your book, print, and go. You, the publisher, get your royalties and I’m sure a portion goes to the kiosk holder to pay for the production of that book.

As a small book publisher you now don’t have to pre-pay to print books, or ship them to stores…if you can even get someone to agree to put them on the shelves. You don’t have to find a place to store the unsold copies, hoping for a buyer or disposal if there is no hope. If you’re in a niche market like Manga, now you can sell any title in your catalog without any of these expenses. You don’t even have to be involved, other then uploading your PDF to the main catalogue and then you can focus on marketing and getting the people who want it that it’s available to buy. (Just go pick it up next time your picking up some milk!)

It wouldn’t work right now. They’re not close to being everywhere (at over $100,000 for the machine and printer it doesn’t seem cost effective yet.) They aren’t stand-alone and have to be manned by an employee and have an unbreakable connection to the internet. I can’t imagine how often you’d have to change the paper on one of these things. But even as they are I can see the benefits to a small time publisher. A one time cost of $100,000, while sizable might be worth it if you can have a machine that can print off any book in your catalogue in minutes, ready to be shipped to anywhere. They say it costs a .01 to print a page on this, so your typical manga (of generous 200 pages) would cost $2.00 to print.

I know there are other costs besides printing the book. And in manga there is even more expenses, like the licensing costs, translation, adaptation (both the text and artwork), pre-press costs, royalties, lawyers, employees, marketing… I’m sure the list is longer then I can imagine. But right now all those costs can be contained in cover price between 9.99-15.99, with this device you could charge the same but cut out whatever portion goes to all that managing of the physical book. Print out some copies for Amazon to sell, and the rest are fufilled right out of your offices…one at a time as they are ordered.

Personally, I would love a chance to get on the ground floor for a franchise on this. Imagine being able to place these in places with long wait times, like the DMV, airports, doctor’s offices. Or open a kiosk in the mall, next to the lady trying to sell you hand cream and the guy with the kiosk with the cellphone accessories. Right now these have to be manned by an employee, but imagine in the future when they eliminate that step and you could put these on their own, any place a person might walk by. Great for a coffee shop, or a hair salon… maybe one next to those chairs the guys sit on when their significant others are shopping? (Or conversely, one in the sporting goods store next to the golf equipment or at a boat show?)

In the manga world… imagine having one of these things at a con stocked with every manga ever published in English, French, Italian or Japanese?

If I was manga publisher here in the west, I’d so be advocating that the companies come together with the makers of this thing for a “Manga Kiosk” that could be placed in bookstores, comic book stores, game shops and any other place it could fit and be manned. Stocked with every title they have a license for, all across the board. Someone wants a copy of the latest Naruto, it’s theirs in less then 5 minutes. They want a copy of The Swan volume 14? Equally easy to find. The licensers get their cut, the stores where the kiosks are placed get a paid a rental fee for giving the space (like most vending machines do, usually a percentage of it’s intake so they’re invested in it’s sucess), and the customers have someplace to go where they can get their fix. Instantly.

An in the distant future, people would have old models set up in their game rooms rigged to give free books, just like people have old coke machines now. Okay…maybe that’s a little out there. But it would be cool!

I’ve been working through my manga backlog…

Posted by Merrow on Oct 3, 2009 in Blog, Books, Manga, Recommended | 0 comments

Since my books are still over at my old apartment, I’ve had to plan out what I’m reading a bit more. Instead of just randomly grabbing out something, I’ve been selecting long series that I have more then one new volume of that I haven’t read. I tend to buy stuff and then wait until I have two or three new volumes before sitting down to read it. That worked fine when companies were pumping out titles monthly or even a couple months apart. But now it’s getting more common for there to be 4 months or more between a release. By the time I have a couple volumes I’ve forgotten what was going on before. When that happened I tended just to shelve the new volumes until I had a chance to read the series from the beginning and read something new that just came out.

The past month or so, I’ve been taking a series at a time from my old place and bringing it over for a re-read or in some cases a first time read. Possibly the dumbest thing I did was read The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service series right after I moved in the house. A supremely creepy, gory, supernatural horror in an empty house with poor lighting and no furniture… REALLY CLEVER OF ME. I slept even less then I normally do after that. However, I am eagerly awaiting any future volumes because I apparently am a masochist. See also, Ghost Talker’s Daydream which I read because I figured I wasn’t sleeping anyway. It’s got a bit too much fan-service to be as creepy and unsettling as Kurosagi, but it still managed to tell a damn scary story. Too bad it seems that Dark Horse has dropped this one. Volume four (of ten) was slated for May 2009, but it’s not even listed in Amazon now.

More recently I caught up on Ouran, and am now caught up with the official English release. I also caught up on Venus in Love a title I never hear anyone talking about, and it’s a shame because it’s excellent. It’s by the author of ZIG*ZAG, and of the two I prefer Venus. The story starts out following the main character Suzuna, as she settles into her first apartment near the school she’ll be attending Koto University. She meets her neighbor Eichi, and his best friend Fukami whom she immediately starts crushing on. Problem is, she has to get in line. Eichi’s been crushing on him since middle school! What starts out as a friendly and sympathetic rivalry (Fukami is completely oblivious to both of their affections) turns into a fun and teasing friendship.

It was nice to read a manga that is not about a fifteen year old for once, though I will admit Suzuna’s personality isn’t too far off from most fifteen-year-old protagonists in your typical shoujo. She unfortunately fits into that “Sweet, slow and clumsy” trope all too well, but she’s not passive enough to really be annoying about it. The only bad thing about catching up is that a new volume just came out. CMX titles (DC Comic’s manga imprint) never have an easy time getting on local bookstore shelves, so I’ll have to order it in… but I promised myself I wouldn’t buy any manga in the month of October (I’m saving to buy a fake Christmas Tree)!

Currently I’m reading Wild Ones, a Yakuza love story. (Kind of.) I really like this series. It’s artwork is slick and pretty. I love the covers and the interior “Five minutes Later” gag covers. The main character Sachie is rapidly working up my list of “Cool Manga Heroines.” She is not the passive shoujo heroine who just wants a prince to take care of her. I love her responses whenever her love interests say the typical tired “I’ll protect you” or “I’d die for you” type of lines. Plus she’s fully capable of kicking ass all on her own, though she does get “saved” more often then I like (especially since it seems unnecessary.)

There is a new volume of Wild Ones out too, further tempting me to break my promise not to buy books.  Plus more Kimi ni Todoke and Skip Beat!! Add to that that Rightstuf is having a 33% sale off on Viz, and Amazon is having a 4-for-3 promotion AND Borders is having a buy 4 get one free promotion. It’s like the universe is converging to get me to break my resolve. It’s not even October 2nd  yet!