Tuesday, 29 Aug 2006
I was going to wrap my reaction to Tokyopop’s recent announcement that their WOM success, Dragon Head, exclusively available via their website (as well as other titles) into another post about how I’m trying to wean myself off of periodical comics in favor of book-format comics, but I’m struggling along with that one.
The short version is that buying staple-bound comics through the direct market has long been a hassle and, the recent growth of comics in bookstores has made buying comics easier — for certain formats and publishers. Buying periodical comics is still the same hassle, but buying manga digests, collected editions and original graphic novels has become much easier, making the paperback format much more attractive. I’m having a hard time dropping the monthlies I currently follow, but the temptation to pick up new monthly series, no matter how intriguing, has become pretty slight and the number of staple-bound comics I buy shrinks as cancellations happen.
Unfortunately, Dragon Head has now become as inconvenient a title to try to follow as Testament or Mary Jane. I’m glad I never got around to picking up the first volume. I just don’t buy manga online, anymore. Since I’m behind in my reading, manga’s an impulse buy. When I go to an online store, I stop and think about the stack of unread that awaits me at home and guilt trip myself out of the purchase, something that doesn’t happen as often in a bookstore.
Dragon Head looked like it could have been a compelling cerebral thriller along the lines of Death Note or Monster, but Del Rey’s ES also looked like a title with plenty of potential to push those buttons. I think once I get my reading stack down to the point when I would have picked up the first Dragon Head volume, I’ll grab a copy of ES instead.
There’s one bit from that Mike Kiley interview that’s been bugging me:
the launch of our new site and the size of the new audience and the way people are interacting with our site, we really believe there is an ability to put things in front of those people in a more creative, featured way to draw attention to books that haven’t been getting as much exposure as they should through the normal channels of distribution.
As someone who’s hoped to see Tokyopop revisit titles that didn’t find the audience it deserved and was disappointed that “Manga After Dark” never happened, I feel skeptical that Tokyopop will be able to make a “really special” title successful by taking it out of stores. Maybe this will be the time they get it right, but I don’t really get the feeling that Tokyopop’s marketing philosophy has discovered much more than selling what’s already popular.
Supplemental tags: Dragon Head
August 30th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Oh yes, ES is really good. You should check it out.
I wonder if Tokyopop is going to make any effort to market these online-only books to libraries? I get the feeling that most libraries use a single distributor, and making librarians go outside the usual channels to get a book is going to discourage sales even further.
August 30th, 2006 at 4:19 pm
[...] Meanwhile, Lyle points out that this makes Tokyopop more like the periodical comics he’s walked away from. [...]
August 30th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
That’s a good point about libraries, Brigid. That seems like an unforseen consequence that’ll make these books noticed even less by general audiences.
August 31st, 2006 at 8:45 am
[...] One point being made in defense of Tokyopop deciding to sell some titles exclusively through their website praises the publisher for finding a way to continue publishing low-selling titles that would otherwise have to be cancelled. That may, indeed, be worth praising, but doesn’t Tokyopop have at least one title that struggling but beloved, namely the Kindaichi Case Files? I swear I recall running into fans of KCF fretting that Tokyopop may not publish any more volumes of the series (after volume 14 comes out in November — six months after the pervious volume – and no further plans for the series are mentioned). I’d guess that Tokyopop could win some begrudging support for the website-only sales if a silver lining (like the continuation of KCF) were a part of the deal. [...]