Comments on: Tokyopop Makes A Criminal Of Me

By: Slash Print | Keenspot, Apple tablet talk and more | Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources – Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 20:00:12 +0000

[...] | Tokyopop polls the audience on how much they'd be willing to pay for online manga. Chris Butcher questions whether the three options they offer in the poll are really the best options. Tokyopop's marketing manager shows up in the comments section, which also has a bit of an [...]

By: Manga Xanadu » Blog Archive » This Week in Manga 12/20-12/25/2009

Manga Xanadu » Blog Archive » This Week in Manga 12/20-12/25/2009 — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:13:41 +0000

[...] how people would like to pay for online manga. Chris Butcher of the Comics 121 blog apparently saw it too. He went into much more detail about how bad the options were and slammed Tokyopop for giving [...]

By: NarwhalTortellini

NarwhalTortellini — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:39:29 +0000

Asking a GOOD question does tend to get a lot better discussion, though. ^_^; But fair enough.

I use online manga more to sample a series and see if I’ll like them. I admit when I can’t find a manga used I used to do this even with scanlations, but I haven’t so much lately just because I got so fed up with the semi-frequent awkward translations and general hassle of finding things. (Consequently, I ended up buying less new hard copy manga since I didn’t know what I was interested in anymore ^_^;) So being able to pay by chapter would be really attractive to me. (Some manga take more than a volume to know if it works for you…some you wish you didn’t buy the thing and consequently feel obligated to read more than one.) Could that be an option, or would only new manga be available? But I think the question isn’t so much what’s the max I would pay as how one might behave depending on the price brackets. Personally, (especially since I get most of my first volumes of manga cheap off swapping sites)…

75 cents – I’d probably use it sometimes, but rarely. Likely only if I suspected I wouldn’t read a full volume.
50 cents – A decent price. If I became interested in a TP title this is very likely how I’d sample it. But I would be a bit cautious about what I tried and I would stop reading immediately once I suspected I’d just buy the hard copy so as not to pay for it twice.
25 cents – Rather than just come to the site when I knew a specific TP that was interesting, the TP site might instead (if there were a lot of choices) become one of the main places I surf around to find new series. A lot of series I like I might even continue to read new chapters of online even though I’m buying the hard copy later.

Though there are some series I’d pretty much pay anyting to see some form of continnuation of *coughoff*beatcough*

By: Roundups, retrospectives, reviews, and free advice | Paperless Comics

Roundups, retrospectives, reviews, and free advice | Paperless Comics — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:02:20 +0000

[...] Butcher pushes severely back on a Tokyopop poll (which may not have been entirely serious) about what format readers would like [...]

By: Hak Foo

Hak Foo — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:49:16 +0000

I want to see the following options:

* Cheap rental (say, $3 per volume / one week) akin to Netcomics.

* More expensive ownership (say, $6 per volume) so if I ever want to get in a fandom spat and say “On chapter 116…” I can have it permanently for reference.

* On demand sales of hard-copies, maybe at $14 or so. Personally, I want some series to fit on a shelf.

By: Translations, best-of lists, and deep thoughts « MangaBlog

Translations, best-of lists, and deep thoughts « MangaBlog — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:26:28 +0000

[...] Butcher responds to Tokyopop’s online manga poll as only Chris can. Read the comments, too, for an interesting discussion about several topics in [...]

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:43:11 +0000

For what it’s worth, I’d like something that favors digital serialization and print collections. I personally don’t see the point of owning a complete digital volume, and following series as chapters are released is easier online. A nominal (and LOW) suscription fee (with ads on the site or embeded in pages) that let me follow multiple series and then sold print collections for my favorites would be nice.

Any sort of tiered or per-chapter scheme would be epic fail.

By: Kasia

Kasia — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:54:59 +0000

Chris!
This is Kasia, TOKYOPOP Marketing Manager.
I’m sorry that you have this impression that TOKYOPOP might draw conclusions from a poll like this. As Lillian writes, our intention was to spark a discussion. We probably should have been more transparent about that. At the very least, we certainly have some clear ideas now of how people feel, which helps us create what will be a more nuanced pricing policy.
Now that I have your attention…what would you pay for:
1) Chapters of new manga that you can download as they come out
2) Entire new books (say this month’s releases and the last 3 months of releases) that you can download one book at a time
3) Backlist books (say anything older than 3 months ago) that you can download one book at a time
4) A monthly fee to access all of our backlist that you can rent and then “return”, like a digital library (kind of like Netflix)
5) A chapter-by-chapter model for backlist books

This is all assuming that the first chapter or first 20 pages (depending on licensor requirements) would always be free for preview.

I look forward to your response!

By: ed

ed — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:10:06 +0000

Chris:
About OneManga/MangaFox, we have (sent them two weeks ago) with a deadline of Jan 1. Vertical will be pursuing legal action if the content isn’t removed.

And for disclosure OneManga did already.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:45:40 +0000

Jan/Matthew: Viz Legal and Viz Editorial are two very different wings of the company. I have nothin’ but hugs for Viz Editorial. Viz Legal…

Lillian: I like you a great deal. But TP and Stu in particular have pulled this type of thing a lot over the history of the company, responding to ‘fan demand’ for something that is specious at best. So if this was presented to ‘spark’ discussion with ideas No One Liked, well, congratulations I guess? I don’t understand why you couldn’t float a useful suggestion in there as well, rather than three terrible ones.

By: sesho

sesho — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:35:28 +0000

I think no matter what you do online with manga titles, they should be cheaper than physical copies. Why? Because it’s cheaper for the publisher, so why pay more, or even the same? That savings should be passed on to the customer. I would buy manga online IF it was cheaper than the books.

By: Matthew J. Brady

Matthew J. Brady — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:28:33 +0000

Wow, Viz has sent takedown notices for a single panel? I usually scan and post several (I would say 4 or 5, on average) pages in each review, and I’ve never gotten a complaint. I know Viz is aware of this, since they send me review copies, and they’ve thanked me for reviews I’ve written. Maybe it’s because I get less traffic? Weird.

By: LillianDP

LillianDP — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 18:14:33 +0000

Whoooooaaa, considering that the other polls we run on the site are things along the highly serious nature of “What’s your favorite Japanese candy?” I think you’re reading a little too much into things. It’s also a little insulting to think that we would make a major pricing decision based on three (definitely polarizing) options that only 36 people have responded to, but then, I can understand how we haven’t done much to endear ourselves or inspire confidence in the last few years.

The three options as presented aren’t very appealing to anyone (which I’m not at all surprised by–I agree with pretty much everything you said above), but if you look through the comments, there are actually some fairly interesting ones. Maybe this was intended to spark conversation on a topic that no one in the industry has presented a perfect solution to yet, rather than gather accurate and reliable data?

By: Jan

Jan — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 15:35:42 +0000

Wow, I guess I’ve been flying under the radar, because I’ve posted pages from Viz manga I’ve reviewed and not heard a thing. Either that, or the fact that one of my blog partners is a lawyer who responds to such scare tactics with the contempt they deserve keeps them from trying it.

I don’t mind a low-cost temporary reading option. $.25 per chapter like netcomics, or $2 per vol like e-manga are perfectly reasonable options to me. But $1 a temp chapter, or full price for a virtual volume? I choose d) F(orget) that.

By: Inkwell

Inkwell — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:41:11 +0000

That is dumb, especially since “nothing” (without the passive-aggressive part) is a perfectly legitimate option. I’ve been enjoying the free manga at Viz’s websites (sigikki and shonen sunday) and have found at least two titles that I would buy in print. So, I guess TokyoPop won’t be following this strategy?

By: Greg McElhatton

Greg McElhatton — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:18:56 +0000

I see I’m not the only one who’s been attacked by Viz over showing interior art under fair use for journalistic/review purposes. In the end I gave up and just pulled all the images. If they want to get less sales as a result because you can’t see what the insides look like, well, that’s their own damn fault.