Yaoi Press

I recently had a discussion with a business associate about the state of original English language manga (OEL). This person is very much in the know about this segment of the business. He and I were on the same wavelength. We both had the same views:

1. OEL manga must sell much better than licensed titles to be successful, because it's at least 3 times more expensive to publish. It is absolutely cheaper to license manga than to produce OEL works. The idea that companies were making their own graphic novels in order to save money is a myth. It's cheaper and easier to license titles than to create them from scratch.

2. Unfortunately, opportunities for OEL manga creators are almost zero in the USA right now. A sad fact is that OEL manga that sold well, even as well as licensed titles, were still publishing money-pits. There is no incentive for publishers to continue taking chances on relatively expensive new talent.

3. Large publishers which still appear to have calls for OEL submissions are actually looking for licensed properties. Not licenses from Japan. They want to do manga adaptions of Dean Koontz novels, or manga based on CSI. This is why the encourage artists to submit far more than writers. They don't want writers submitting their unproven original ideas. They want artists to draw the 'Star Wars' manga, etc.

These three pessimistic points are the reality right now. All of us on the industry side of OEL know it.

Getting back to that conversation, my colleague asked me how it was that Yaoi Press was able to continue publishing OEL. The assumption of some fans is that it's because it's yaoi. That our niche somehow gives Yaoi Press a leg-up in the business.

The market is flooded with yaoi right now. People don't have to buy Yaoi Press books in order to have their needs satisfied. Yaoi is no golden ticket. Publishers and imprints have folded in the past.

Yaoi Press has survived these last four years, and thrived, because my staff and I fight, scratch, and bleed for every sale we make.

Every time you see a Yaoi Press book at Borders, Rightstuf International, Comic Shops, Netcomics, or at a vendor's booth at a convention you are seeing something that we worked desperately to achieve. It's an ongoing battle. We have to work every single day to keep our customers buying. Keep the wholesalers stocking. Keep the store buyers biting. Yaoi Press is a 72 hour per week job for me, as well as full-time jobs for two office staff. Most of my time isn't spent writing yaoi. It's fighting for sales.

If we only had revenue through sales made from book stores, comic shops, our distributors, our web site, we would still have an insurmountable deficit. Even all that scratching, fighting, and bleeding isn't enough to stay afloat. Honestly. Publishing is about as tough a business as you'll ever find. Yes, I know it's tough on the creator side of the equation. Tougher than it's ever been. The same can be said on publisher's side of things.

The reason Yaoi Press can continue to take chances on new/unproven OEL creators is because of all the anime conventions we do. This is the answer to my colleague's question. Yaoi Press is thriving because we bring the books directly to our fans. Every month. In every region of North America.

I'm not saying that you can be successful in manga publishing by touring the country selling at anime conventions. You can lose a lot of money in travel and booth expenses this way. Yaoi Press did lose a lot of money on conventions in 2005, when we only had 8 books published and didn't sell merchandise from other publishers.

We became successful by becoming the 'yaoi' vendor. We sell the merchandise of all the publishers, and we feature Yaoi Press books. We sell our titles at a discount. We distribute free catalogs with sample pages of our books. We give an industry panel for Yaoi Press.

We make enough at the large/local shows to have profitable, successful shows. Some shows, like Yaoi Con and Otakon, pay our printing bills.

Most shows are too small for us to break even at. The smaller shows on our schedule are either local to me or one of our staff (hence we are saved travel/hotel costs and need to make very little to be successful) or the shows are bringing me in as a guest.

I'm very grateful that Winter Demon and Dark Prince have given me enough notoriety to be a guest at anime shows. Just as with our merchandise, I've become a general 'yaoi' guest. Shows have been bringing me in because I make all the yaoi fans happy with Yaoi Jeopardy, Yaoi Hentai Show, Yaoi 'Let's Make a Deal' (ala Monty Hall), along with a well-stocked yaoi booth.

I digress, but the point to this all is that manga publishing is a business just like everything else. There is no magic wand that helps people discover your web site, or gets your books into Borders. Every sale is you or your staff scratching, fighting, and bleeding. Of course publishers want the sure bets. There's more at stake than ever before to be successful right now.