Harlequin to Distribute Manga Via Cellphones in Japan
By Jane • Mar 20th, 2008 • Category: Publishing News • •By now, you must have read how Japanese consumers are reading more and more on their cellphones. Harlequin is the grey old lady of romance no more. Harlequin is teaming up with Softbank Creative to sell and distribute its romance manga via cellphone in Japan.
Beginning in April 2008 SoftBank will distribute digital versions of Harlequin K.K.’s successful comics on cell phones and Internet distribution sites. Over the next five years SoftBank will carry 1,000 Harlequin manga titles chosen from over 10,000 of the romance publisher’s novels.
I don’t know of another publisher that is pushing the international and digital boundaries like Harlequin. HarperCollins is a close second, but Harlequin, for all its faults, is thinking of the future.
Via news release.
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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[...] more proving how ahead of the game they are in the digital space, compared with other publishers. Dear Author reports that they will be distributing Harlequin manga titles to mobile phones in the Japanese [...]