On waiting for the trade; Wired manga articles up

I hadn’t linked to the latest Tilting at Windmills entry by Brian Hibbs earlier, and the various responses it had garnered, because I wanted to give it all a really thorough reading before jotting down a few thoughts of my own… the matter of balancing serialization and trade publishing is obviously something I have a keen interest in, and such an essay called for careful review.

The main argument in the article is that trades released in close proximity to their single issue serials is bad for the industry as it breeds a wait-for-the-trade mentality in the public, which in turn makes singles less profitable and prospects for the final trade collection less likely.  It seems like rather circuitous reasoning, although I can’t say I disagree with the main premise that habitually early trade releases may make readers think twice about supporting singles (in the bigger picture, I also share Hibb’s view on the financial importance of singles to the industry overall, not in amortizing costs of trade collections, but as an economical option for smaller publishers who cannot afford big projects.)  This might not be true for all publishers, but many.

A longer wait time between serials and trade collections, similar to the time between a movie debuting at theaters and the eventual DVD release, would alleviate this problem, although I’m less confident in efforts to openly convince readers to essentially pay for R&D of a product-in-development.  But more importantly, I don’t think the core issue was addressed at all by Hibbs, one that probably plays a bigger role in the minds of readers than publishing schedules: speaking broadly, serial comics and trade paperbacks in their current forms essentially serve the same function for the end user.  Between a complete set of singles and one collected book, the reading experience is pretty much the same.  And aside from one looking much better than the other on a bookshelf, to most readers comics and trades are both “books”, to be kept and read, with which format filling the shelves decided merely by the preference of the individual.

It is obviously beneficial if publishers can get readers to pay twice for the same material… and the best way to accomplish that is to convince readers that’s they’re not actually paying twice.

Returning to the movie analogy, a DVD is something you keep, but going to the theater is an experience… the same product serves two purposes.  Another similar example is manga; as Hibbs noted, most manga in Japan are indeed serialized before being collected.  But what wasn’t mentioned is that trade releases in Japan sometimes do closely follow the serializations.  Particularly in the ero genre which I’m involved in, on occassion short story collections are released before all stories have been published in a magazine.  Serials in Japan are not seen as collectable, long-term keepsakes, so trades being released early is not as much of a problem… readers view the two as different products, serving different purposes.  (Although I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that trade sales in Japan are rising, while magazine sales are falling.  The reasons are not clear, and theories are many.)

If publishers can make the pamphlet and trade-reading experiences sufficiently different so that each give unique value to consumers, then slightly cluttered publishing schedules wouldn’t have a significant effect.  However, as for a solution that isn’t detrimental in the short term to publishers or retailers, I’m all ears.  Frankly, considering that print publishing may be gone within a decade depending on whom you talk to, implementing any long-term plan to perpetuate current print publishing models may be a fool’s errand…

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Almost missed this… MangaCast picks up on printing troubles at Infinity Studios.  Luckily, the problems seem to have been resolved for Infinity, but nevertheless this kind of news raises the hairs on my neck, as it makes me realize just how vulnerable we ourselves are to glitches in production and delivery, and how dependent we are on the fortunes of others… we’re just one shipping mishap or one printer closing away from complete and utter destruction.

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The Wired manga issue is now up: How Manga Conquered the US, a cool little manga itself; Japan, Ink: Inside the Manga Industrial Complex, which actually focuses on doujinshi; and a few shorter features here, here, and here.

Great reads.  Just go there.