Tokyopop blogswarm

With the exception of PWCW’s lovefest with CEO Stu Levy, this has not been a good week for Tokyopop. And even that interview didn’t go over well with Dirk Deppey, who had some harsh words for Levy’s attempt to seem supportive of comics retailers in the interview while taking product off their shelves in real life. Deppey also points out, though, that while some retailers have been hollering (we’ll get to that in a minute), most comics stores don’t sell manga anyway. This is really more about the big chains.

ICv2 has responses to the online exclusives program from three different retailers, each of whom has a valid point. Ed Sherman doesn’t mind losing some books to online exclusives, but he resents them putting resources into pushing weak books when he can’t get copies of the hot sellers:

I cannot get copies of Kingdom Hearts #1-3, Loveless #1, or Battle Club #1, just to name a few. These are all strong selling books that have been out of stock for months. It also appears that it is becoming harder to re-order most new promising Tokyopop titles as well. As soon as a new title gets hot, we cannot get any restocks. What gives?

It almost looks like an ADV-type situation, only with existing releases rather than new ones: Fans want the product, but the publisher won’t sell it.

Robert Brown agrees with Ed and sees the latest move as evidence that Tokyopop is out of touch with its market. J. Carmody has a good suggestion for where this might go in the future:

Perhaps instead of removing titles from the trade channels to offer online as exclusives, an e-book version could be offered instead, with a better version (additional information, perhaps a backup story included) provided to the trade channel.

I like this because these “online exclusives,” while being touted as a positive thing, are clearly titles that Tokyopop has low expectations for. One way to spin this is, if they weren’t online exclusives, they wouldn’t be available at all. Looked at this way, I guess I’m for it; the more titles in print, the better. David Taylor sort of agrees with this part:

So sorry if I get a little greedy here, but if the only way to keep a title like Dragon Head running a little more towards completion is to have to buy it from the Tokyopop store then I’d certainly consider it. Notice consider it, not out right jump at the chance. Even I, don’t have enough love for a title to suddenly start paying double for the privilege.

But taking this one step further, Tokyopop could make the titles web-only at the beginning, which would build interest with less risk for the publisher (they’d still have translation and some production costs, but paper is expensive). Then if the titles caught on, they could do print editions. This seems to be working for Netcomics (which charges for the web manga) and Seven Seas (which doesn’t).

Lyle has another suggestion: Add Kindaichi Case Files to the list. Kindaichi is one of those titles that is much beloved but doesn’t sell particularly well, and releases have slowed to an ADV-like crawl. This title might get people started buying online exclusives, although maybe that’s why they included Dragon Head to begin with.

John Jakala points out that Tokyopop doesn’t seem to have any mechanism in place for letting retailers know that titles are going to be “online exclusives” in the future. That’s what Cathy at it can’t all be about manga, found out when she went to her local comics store. And apparently there’s some disconnect between Tokyopop and reality:

When I mentioned that Dragon Head would be one of the titles, BOTH of the store employees told me I had to be wrong, since that was a really popular title and sold well. MCSF also asked me to send her a list of the exclusive titles “since she couldn’t handle Tokyopop’s new website.”

At Postmodern Barney, Dorian has insights that don’t really match the conventional wisdom on the blogosphere:

Manga novels don’t sell. Sports manga don’t sell. So-called “global manga” titles don’t sell. A few Korean titles will sell every once in awhile, but the “original English language” stuff is almost always dead on arrival.

He also observes that retailers remember unfriendly gestures like this one, and this move may cause him to recommend dropping Tokyopop altogether.

I think it’s obvious at this point that Tokyopop needs to market this better, and having the publisher say it’s a great idea really isn’t enough. The online exclusives may indeed be a way to keep good manga in print even if the demand is low. If so, Tokyopop should act like they love it, have the editors blog about it, present it as the manga the cool kids are reading. Buzz is not random. If, on the other hand, it’s crap, they should mark it down, perhaps by giving coupons or buy-two-get-one-free deals if there’s a contractual requirement to sell the books at full price. But for god’s sake, market it!

In this same vein, I wonder if Tokyopop has given any thought to the issue of libraries, which aren’t likely to buy books online. If these are books that deserve to do well, sending free volume 1’s to libraries might be a way to kick-start the series. My kids often get a volume or two from the library and then buy the rest.

The online exclusives are not necessarily a terrible idea. My kids, who are probably more typical of manga consumers than we bloggers, are loyal to particular titles and will order them online if they can’t find them at the chains. And since they are usually spending my money, not theirs, they are not very price-conscious. They would totally go for this. But it needs to be marketed well, and so far Tokyopop hasn’t done enough in that direction.