I was a guest at Mizucon this past weekend in Miami Florida. I had a great time at a very well-run and well-attended show. This was the first show where I held a writing panel. This was a request of my hosts, and I warily obliged them. I have always tried to avoid panels like these because I rather do goofy fun panels than meat and potatoes sort of things.
It went extremely well, to the point that I am adding this 'Writing 101' panel to my programming arsenal for future shows. The one hour panel went three since there were no other events in the room. I felt strongly that the attendees really took something of use away with them.
One thing I shared at the panel was my advice on Writers Block. With all the writing articles, books, etc., I doubt I'm the first one whose thought of this method. Still, it really helps me, and it set off some oos and ahhs at the panel.
Sometimes I get in the 'zone' with a project, where words are flowing and pages are filling one after the other. I keep going until the energy is spent, and I get to a stopping point. Occasionally I find myself avoiding getting back to the project. I don't open the file. When I think of working on it I go play an online game instead. I get to where I can't force myself to work on it no matter how hard I try. Even if I have notes on where the story should go from there, I'm blocked. I don't want to write it anymore.
I've come to realize that when I reach points like this something went wrong with the last part I'd written. The characters were doing something wrong for their personalities, or the story was focusing on something that wasn't pertinent, or it just got corny or convoluted or inconsistent. That's why I'm blocked. I know in the back of my head something is wrong. I don't want to keep building on that fault line.
The way for me to get unblocked is to go back to the point last point where the words were flowing and delete the rest. I think about why that part is killing my momentum and get it back in the right direction. I consider the motivations of my characters, what their after, where they're supposed to lead the story, and make the adjustment.
I plan to post more about writing in the future. For now, I'm off to Anime LA. See you there!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Diamonds
Four years ago I made a good decision. I decided to have our graphic novels distributed by Diamond Book Distributors. This is the other side of Diamond Comic Distributors, the company that supplies every comic shop in North America with their comics, and also puts out the monthly Previews catalog. DBD was the division set up to sell to book stores.
In 2005 Yaoi Press had published several books, and was established enough to work with a major distributor. I thought of Diamond because it was a company I'd known most of my life. I'd ordered from the Previews catalog for years as a comic collector. Graphic novels were just thicker comic books. I decided they should be the one to sell them.
This was an instinctive decision, not based on much research. I'd looked at a few other distributors, but not really in depth.
Diamond Distributors has a love/hate relationship with the industry. I'm aware of it's haters. You'll excuse me if I don't go into why some businesses take issue with them. They're my distributor. I'm not going to spread bad press about them.
However, there was a time when I was strongly pressured to find a new distributor. My friend at Hirameki was very unhappy with them. He told me horror stories about how their account was handled. He warned the same would happen to me. Then a person from Dramaqueen told me how they refused to ever do business with Diamond due to bad experiences of their own. Last was Bebeautiful. They also were not happy with Diamond.
Then I spoke to a friend from DMP. She had also heard what the other companies said about Diamond. We agreed we were both going to stay with them. We hadn't had problems. We didn't know if the grass would be greener elsewhere. We were staying put.
I think a great deal of the success both Yaoi Press and DMP has seen is because of this decision. No distributor is perfect, but there still hasn't been one whose shown they can do better for us.
In 2005 Yaoi Press had published several books, and was established enough to work with a major distributor. I thought of Diamond because it was a company I'd known most of my life. I'd ordered from the Previews catalog for years as a comic collector. Graphic novels were just thicker comic books. I decided they should be the one to sell them.
This was an instinctive decision, not based on much research. I'd looked at a few other distributors, but not really in depth.
Diamond Distributors has a love/hate relationship with the industry. I'm aware of it's haters. You'll excuse me if I don't go into why some businesses take issue with them. They're my distributor. I'm not going to spread bad press about them.
However, there was a time when I was strongly pressured to find a new distributor. My friend at Hirameki was very unhappy with them. He told me horror stories about how their account was handled. He warned the same would happen to me. Then a person from Dramaqueen told me how they refused to ever do business with Diamond due to bad experiences of their own. Last was Bebeautiful. They also were not happy with Diamond.
Then I spoke to a friend from DMP. She had also heard what the other companies said about Diamond. We agreed we were both going to stay with them. We hadn't had problems. We didn't know if the grass would be greener elsewhere. We were staying put.
I think a great deal of the success both Yaoi Press and DMP has seen is because of this decision. No distributor is perfect, but there still hasn't been one whose shown they can do better for us.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
State of the Yaoi A-Press
Year End Post - 2008
Like most publishers, we've been tightening our belts in anticipation of a lean period ahead. We're grateful that book store sales have continued to increase despite the USA officially being in a recession for over a year. This is largely due to sales from Borders.
Despite strong book store sales we know better than to assume the trend will continue in 2009. We'll be putting out fewer titles with higher page counts going forward. For instance, rather than publishing a series like Dark Prince in three volumes, we will release entire series in single 450+ page one-shots. The length and height of the books will increase also. From 5" wide, 7.5" long, and .5" thick, to 6" wide, 8" long, and 1.5" thick. This will result in less printing costs, more value for consumers, and fewer titles for stores to try to find shelf space for. We'll also be able to more keenly focus our promotions with fewer properties.
We've seen a marked decrease in anime convention sales at regional shows, but sales increased at the largest shows. Smaller shows and college-based conventions were the worst hit by the bad economy. We saw many attendees not able to afford anything other than the admission. Shows are being forced to crack down on people without hotels trying to sleep in the AV or game rooms. In Georgia, an area still reeling as late as 2007 from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, shows had far too high a number of attendees without any money for food. This is not a new issue at conventions, but we'd never seen it so extreme as in this area. The shows we participated in Florida had cheap fast food all around within walking distance. We didn't see as many attendees weak from hunger, but we did see a 77% decrease in sales at one Orlando convention from 2007 to 2008.
The regional convention hit means that we saw reduced sales at 14 of the 24 conventions we exhibited at. We countered this by lowering expenses. Many regional shows had local staff who didn't need to travel or stay at a hotel. It's also important to note that even with 14 conventions seeing reduced sales, overall convention sales increased by 2% from 2007. The big shows really did well for us, particularly those that we'd been at several years. Fans hunted for our booth, attended our panel(s), and gave us tremendous support.
We should be at as many or more shows in 2009 as 2008. Even small regional shows are worthwhile for us when there's a local staff person. We'll be revisiting some larger shows we missed in 2008, and will have first-time exhibits at several of the smaller shows.
Comic shop sales continue to be weak for us. We saw a small decrease in the already minuscule sales from 2007 to 2008. We had planned a release for Free Comic Book Day, but had this knocked out of the water due to new content policies. One bright spot was the number of holiday bundles we saw shops pick up. Our new format with higher page count might help sales in this area going forward.
There's been steady growth in digital sales with our titles on Netcomics.com. This is the only area where we see our young adult titles continue to flourish. The audience for the site is much younger than the audience purchasing our hard-copy books. We're investigating offering downloads of Yaoi Press titles in foreign languages. This venture is still in it's infancy.
Web site sales through everythingyaoi.com continue to generate significant income for us. Sales spike certain months, and level off in others. Everythingyaoi.com is a great market research tool, telling us which types of books fans want the most, and what time of year to release them.
Just as with most everything else we have to brace for an online sales decline. Our east coast shipping nexus was closed in November. The store still runs smoothly. There have been several navigation updates and great deal of pruning.
Speaking as the Publisher of Yaoi Press, I want to be sure that nothing in my annual wrap-up is misconstrued. I haven't understated or overstated any of our circumstances here. Yaoi Press is in a great position for the start of 2009. I see a challenging next two years, but nothing that we aren't poised to handle. I know that all the yaoi companies that closed in 2008 have fans on edge. You can't help but get shaken when you see this. It makes me even more grateful that we're doing so well. I know how fragile publishing success is. We don't take it for granted.
Like most publishers, we've been tightening our belts in anticipation of a lean period ahead. We're grateful that book store sales have continued to increase despite the USA officially being in a recession for over a year. This is largely due to sales from Borders.
Despite strong book store sales we know better than to assume the trend will continue in 2009. We'll be putting out fewer titles with higher page counts going forward. For instance, rather than publishing a series like Dark Prince in three volumes, we will release entire series in single 450+ page one-shots. The length and height of the books will increase also. From 5" wide, 7.5" long, and .5" thick, to 6" wide, 8" long, and 1.5" thick. This will result in less printing costs, more value for consumers, and fewer titles for stores to try to find shelf space for. We'll also be able to more keenly focus our promotions with fewer properties.
We've seen a marked decrease in anime convention sales at regional shows, but sales increased at the largest shows. Smaller shows and college-based conventions were the worst hit by the bad economy. We saw many attendees not able to afford anything other than the admission. Shows are being forced to crack down on people without hotels trying to sleep in the AV or game rooms. In Georgia, an area still reeling as late as 2007 from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, shows had far too high a number of attendees without any money for food. This is not a new issue at conventions, but we'd never seen it so extreme as in this area. The shows we participated in Florida had cheap fast food all around within walking distance. We didn't see as many attendees weak from hunger, but we did see a 77% decrease in sales at one Orlando convention from 2007 to 2008.
The regional convention hit means that we saw reduced sales at 14 of the 24 conventions we exhibited at. We countered this by lowering expenses. Many regional shows had local staff who didn't need to travel or stay at a hotel. It's also important to note that even with 14 conventions seeing reduced sales, overall convention sales increased by 2% from 2007. The big shows really did well for us, particularly those that we'd been at several years. Fans hunted for our booth, attended our panel(s), and gave us tremendous support.
We should be at as many or more shows in 2009 as 2008. Even small regional shows are worthwhile for us when there's a local staff person. We'll be revisiting some larger shows we missed in 2008, and will have first-time exhibits at several of the smaller shows.
Comic shop sales continue to be weak for us. We saw a small decrease in the already minuscule sales from 2007 to 2008. We had planned a release for Free Comic Book Day, but had this knocked out of the water due to new content policies. One bright spot was the number of holiday bundles we saw shops pick up. Our new format with higher page count might help sales in this area going forward.
There's been steady growth in digital sales with our titles on Netcomics.com. This is the only area where we see our young adult titles continue to flourish. The audience for the site is much younger than the audience purchasing our hard-copy books. We're investigating offering downloads of Yaoi Press titles in foreign languages. This venture is still in it's infancy.
Web site sales through everythingyaoi.com continue to generate significant income for us. Sales spike certain months, and level off in others. Everythingyaoi.com is a great market research tool, telling us which types of books fans want the most, and what time of year to release them.
Just as with most everything else we have to brace for an online sales decline. Our east coast shipping nexus was closed in November. The store still runs smoothly. There have been several navigation updates and great deal of pruning.
Speaking as the Publisher of Yaoi Press, I want to be sure that nothing in my annual wrap-up is misconstrued. I haven't understated or overstated any of our circumstances here. Yaoi Press is in a great position for the start of 2009. I see a challenging next two years, but nothing that we aren't poised to handle. I know that all the yaoi companies that closed in 2008 have fans on edge. You can't help but get shaken when you see this. It makes me even more grateful that we're doing so well. I know how fragile publishing success is. We don't take it for granted.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Free Yaoi Bag Etc.
Free Yaoi Tote bag with order right now at www.everythingyaoi.com. It's a Dark Prince image. Last time I did this they flew, so I had another 100 made for the holidays.
ANIMA review: http://www.activeanime.com/html/content/view/4264/36/
Winter Demon 4 review: www.kuri-ousity.com/?p=798
Winter Demon 3 review:
http://www.activeanime.com/html/content/view/4238/36/
I'll be a guest at Mizucon mizucon.com December 27 to 29 in Miami Florida. Then come by our booth at Anime LA January 2-4. Cactus Con in Phoenix will host us Jan. 23-25. Finally we'll be at Ohayocon, but I'm not going to be there personally. Staffers Anna and Ray will be running the Yaoi Press booth.
Yes. It's true. I try to only go to warm places in winter. Miami, LA, Phoenix - Me. Cold, snowy Columbus - staff.
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