Follow-up Part 1

I think that somehow switching to Blogger or integrating our blog onto our site has made readers no longer able to do 'trackbacks'. I regret that. I didn't know there was so much discussion about the last post until I did a search. There is a lot of really good feedback to my thoughts. It's worth covering here.

To the depressed creators: cheer up. When a door closes you open a window. And that's not saying that the OEL door is even closed. Yaoi Press is not the only company giving new OEL creators a break. However, to say the opportunities are the same as they were in 2006 is deluding ourselves. Creators who limit themselves to this narrow market are trying to find excuses to fail which don't include 'lack of talent.'

If you have talent that talent is not restricted by format. I can't comprehend any writer who says the only thing they're able to write is OEL manga-style scripts for graphic novels. And artists? If you have exceptional talent in creating sequential art in the manga style then you have work. There are companies looking for you to illustrate those licensed properties I spoke of last time.

The last category here are the writer/creators or teams with their heart set on that project that doesn't fit elsewhere except OEL. You hear companies don't want to take a risk. That your amazing, but unproven, idea won't even be given a chance.

Well, PROVE YOURSELF. Put this incredible work online and cause such a hysteria that large companies are forced to take notice. It worked for MegaTokyo. If your stuff is truly one of the undiscovered gems that would blow up if a publisher just gave it a chance then you are committing a sin not to fight for it.

My next point is in response to Mr. Raiko's comment at The Beat about the broader sales potential with original works vs. license works. He said:

"Setting aside the more pie-in-the-sky scenario of a publisher benefitting by selling film rights (either in the publisher-as-IP-farm business model or just by being able to publish tie-in editions) there are also less controversial scenarios such as being able to sell other translations. An publisher that retains translation rights to original material might be able to generate worthwhile income by selling translations; a publisher of licensed material is less likely to access such revenue streams, since those rights will likely be retained by the licensor."

A very good point. Part of the scratching, fighting, and bleeding I mentioned in the prior post includes doing everything we can to sell foreign language rights to our books. It's gratifying that we are more successful than most other OEL publishers in getting these works licensed. Unfortunately, our gratification comes more from being to able to say, "Our books are so good that they've been published in Polish, French, Spanish, Italian, and German," rather than the income we see from these licenses.

The stigma OEL more or less conquered in the US is still strong in many countries that publish manga. Even in Germany, where they have a thriving OGM (Original German Manga, a term I might have just made up) market, they still expect to pay less for OEL and Korean manwha than Japanese licenses.

Still, Germany is the top licensor to sell OEL to. You can expect to make 7-10% of your costs back by licensing there. There is no other country which currently licenses OEL or manwha, that rivals what Germany pays. You often find yourself giving licenses to countries with smaller markets for free as an investment in future opportunities.

In short, foreign language licensing, especially for OEL, is a very small piece of the financial pie.