Manga

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!

Venus in Love 7 Yay!

Posted by Merrow on Oct 7, 2009 in Blog, Fandom, Manga | 0 comments

I promised myself I wouldn’t buy any books in the month of October… and then immediately regretted it when I got to the end of my available Venus in Love volumes just to discover that there was one more just released! Buying it would mean breaking my promise… and since 6 hadn’t ended in a cliffhanger I’d resigned myself to wait. But then it showed up at my door anyway! Apparently I pre-ordered it through right stuff months ago when they were having a CMX sale. Yay for thinking ahead!

In other news, after reading 1-7 of Venus in Love, 1-7 of Wild Ones, and 1-10 of High School Debut, I think I’m shoujo-ed out for a bit. Though it was nice to end up with High School Debut and it’s habit of taking most shoujo tropes and playing them for laughs. I think it over-reached itself with trying to get serious with the “love rival” chapter. Next up, I’m going to go in the complete opposite direction and catch up with Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys. I’ve only read the first one and really liked it. I was VERY tempted to make the “Friends Cult” symbol into a pin. I probably will at some point.

I’ve managed to keep up with my do three things every day promise, though sometimes the things have been very small. But everyday progress gets made, and that’s the whole point. ^_^ I’m feeling much better about it at least.

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!

Feelin’ All Kinds of Accomplished!

Posted by Merrow on Jul 13, 2008 in Anime, Blog, Fandom, Fanfic, Manga, Website News | 0 comments

I’ve switched over from using Blogger to maintain my blog to WordPress. Blogger is great…easy to use, but not very flexible. Or rather, not easily flexible if you host it yourself. I’ve seen people do amazing things on Blogger, but I could never get my blog looking and acting the way I wanted and have it hosted on my domain, Randomfandom.com.

In less than one week I managed to import all my posts from blogger, got everything organized into categories, gave every post a title, made it searchable, subscribe-able and with a simple downloaded theme, pretty. I wasn’t able to do that in years on Blogger! My site was always functional, but not very attractive and finding past posts on a topic you might be interested was more or less impossible. (If you’re reading this post through my livejournal or facebook mirror, take a glance at the website version of my blog @ blog.randomfandom.com)

Of course, there is still room for improvement. I want to make it look more like the rest of my site. More and more bits of my site don’t have the same look, or even connected. But before I work on image I think I need to focus on posting more, and more good content. Did you know I’ve been posting in my blog since 2002? You know what I learned as I went through each post, marking categories and adding titles? Over half my posts mention I wish I was posting more. That’s six years of regret!

I know I can do it. Take a look at my “Manga-A-Day” posts. I did a month’s worth of posts. I need to decide on a goal and keep it. Right now I’ve got a list of notes about what I liked about my past posts, and what I disliked. I think I know what I want to do more of, and am working on a plan. I’m always interested in feedback. So if there is something you’d like to see more posts on, feel free to chime in.

Among other tasks that I’ve accomplished are boxing up all my VHS tapes and clearing off two bookcases for more manga. Yay! This also lead me to finishing up getting all my VHS and DVDs into my Movie Collector database. I also updated my manga collection in Book Collector, so now:

anime.randomfandom.com
manga.randomfandom.com

are both completely up-to-date. You can also see that they also don’t look anything like the rest of the website, or each other. Oh, well, it’s mostly used by friends so they can send in request for what to borrow. And if I can figure out to make a template for one, I should be able to use it for both.

Next is to focus on fic.randomfandom.com. I realized I never uploaded some of my chapter updates, and there are other things I wanted to add.

Is there anything I’m forgetting in my update roundup?