Anime Expo Yaoi Press Report!

AX was a wonderful show for us. Moreso than in prior years, it seemed. Having an endcap island in the dealer's room helped our visibility tremendously. We plan on exhibiting this way from now on.

There's so much to touch on. Here it is in list format:



* Yaoi Prose was announced! Our new illustrated ebook imprint was the big news at our Saturday morning panel. We're starting off with a Saihoshi continuation written and illustrated by the amazing Studio Kosen (teaser: Yinn fans will be pleased). The launch will also feature Winter Demon stories written by Yamila Abraham (me) and illustrated by a yet to be named top Yaoi Press artist. The tentative live date is the end of this year. Follow the Yaoi Press and Yaoi Prose Twitters for the fastest updates.

* Our first meeting with a production company was at the show (Valhalla Motion Pictures). We hope to move more towards film and other media, but the gay content does make our properties a tough sell to Hollywood. Here's hoping something pans out!

* Our exhibit was directly across from Media Blaster's. We flung the yaoi stress relief corns back and forth to each other. :D Yaoi fans occasionally intercepted.

* Dru Pagliassotti, professor, yaoi scholar, writer, and my editor for an upcoming nonfiction book on Boys Love I'm contributing to, was wrangled into working at our madhouse of a booth on Thursday. I know she hadn't planned on it. ~~; It was great to talk yaoi at an intellectual level for a bit. I can't imagine what she thought of Happy Yaoi Yum Yum. I did warn her!

* Winter Demon Cosplayers manned the booth Thursday and Saturday. I love them so dearly! Great staff = Show success. Sam, Carleena, Alison, Kailah – Fantastic work!

* 75 Copies of Happy Yaoi Yum Yum sold at the show!!! This is our all time record of sales for a single title at a convention. ;_; Everyone seemed to love it. Many happy fans came back to the booth with kudos.

* Much business discussed with Manager-san Mikako Ogata of Aurora Publishing. She was adorable in her schoolgirl cosplay! Our two companies have so much in common. Got to meet Elisa as well, who I pester at Aurora so very often. ~~; I feel great about collaborating with Aurora in the future.

* I sat at the Netcomics booth quite a while meeting with my very good friend, Vice President Soyoung Jung. Netcomics continues to be our digital distribution provider, and we agree the past two years have been a great success. We talked about other things though. I love that Netcomics USA is stronger than ever despite the bad economy. This is thanks to Soyoung. We compared notes on how little we sleep and how many hours we work. She has my workaholic record beat!

* My friends at Digital Manga Publishing gave me a lovely gift. A bottle of wine in a cloth sack. That was so nice of them! ;_; Sasahara-sensei himself carried the box of books I bought from them back to our booth. We walked and talked briefly. Anime Expo was a great chance to strengthen our friendship with this pillar of yaoi publishing. They've helped us so much over the years. ;_;

* I was also glad to meet with Rightstuf for a bit. They're moving cartloads of our books on their site. We will be expanding into our non-book merchandise with them, and may even do an exclusive item. :) I’m very happy that they're releasing more BL anime soon!

* Friday we had Dark Prince cosplayers! King Jereth and "Queen" Moors. It's funny to have a girl playing a guy dressed like a girl. :D They were amazing. These cosplayers were fans of the books I'd befriended last year. They surprised me with the Jereth and Moors costumes. I didn't make them cosplay my books—honest!

• Shoplifter boobytraps were one of our best ideas for the show. Nothing funnier than seeing a thief foiled and running away in terror. Next year we'll try to set up a video camera to catch some YouTube clips. Anime Expo is sadly the very worst show for shoplifting. All the dealers are on high alert. We were supported by plain-clothes security this year.

All in all a fantastic show for us. One of the very best we've ever done! I'm so glad I got all the networking I needed done here since we were too late to get exhibit space at San Diego Comic Con. AX was all about business this year. That suited me perfectly!