Manga’s 2007 Sales Are Up. So Is It or Is It Not Dead?
By Jane • Dec 7th, 2007 • Category: Publishing News • •In the fall of 2007, USA Today had an article declaring that Manga was dying. Despite that Tor has signed a joint venture with Seven seas Entertainment to produce and distribute original manga titles and compete for the licenses of top Japanese Manga.
Total sales for Manga is up by 10% to “more than $220 million, and about 1,468 titles are estimated to have been released last year.”
The USA Today article pointed to the rise of cellphone reading that has captured the attention of Japanese’s reading public and that Manga simply wasn’t well suited to that format. Perhaps with the rise of e-ink readers, particularly color e-ink displays, Manga will have a resurgence in Japan and continue to rise in the US.
Jane is a long time romance reader whose passion is, you guessed it, reading. Jane also does not like to talk about herself in the third person, but apparently this is the way that this biography thing works (although in a true biography, someone else would be writing this blurb). Anyway, currently Jane loves urban fantasy authors Patricia Briggs and Ilona Andrews. She's really excited about this year's crop of historicals including Joanna Bourne's The Spymaster's Lady and Sherry Thomas' Private Arrangements and the upcoming Loretta Chase Her Scandalous Ways.
She's looking for a good contemporary author. Email her with a recommendation!
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Manga is dying/dead? Apparently my teen library patrons didn’t get the memo….
No kidding. The used bookstore near my house has gone from one or two manga titles to an entire wall of them. Doesn’t look like they’re disappearing anytime soon.
I am pretty sure manga is no where near dead. Sales are up and more titles are being put out. The major issue that is coming up is companies are no longer buying cheap licenses and assuming that it will sell. As far as I can tell in the last two years American companies are becoming more careful about what is profitable, especially with the Japanese publishers charging much higher licensing fees.
It might be more that in Japan the medium is changing while companies are not adapting quickly enough to new consumer expectations.
news to me.