Rocket Bomber

So, if you happened to join the discussion on RocketBomber just a couple of weeks ago and were under the impression that the blog is just about business analysis with the occasional odd word on retail: thank you. Skip this post, and I won’t have to excuse or explain anything further.

If you’re still with me: I’m about to eat some red meat and swill some beer and get my umbrage out of the storage case – and really rant a bit.

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[links below represent, and largely repeat verbatim, posts I made to my twitter account]

I wish there were 3 separate, concise terms for fans-who-like-stuff, fans-who-BUY-stuff, and “fans”-who-STEAL-stuff .

See, a fan or “fanatic” really, really likes something. That is not only their defining characteristic, it’s the only requirement for membership in the fan base.

Some fans watch the show on ‘free’ [ad-supported] network TV or ‘free’ [subscription-and-ad-supported] cable TV, and wonder why, since they saw it for free once, why the DVDs cost so much, or why CN cancelled it, or why Nick only shows it on the Nickelodeon-in-the-high-hundreds distaff sub-network, or why they have to stay up until 1AM (or the ultimate hardship of having to set one’s TiVo) to watch this ‘free’ program.

See, there? “Free” things have costs. All things have costs. Some are dollar costs, some are opportunity costs, some are travel and transportation costs, some are insubstantial: the costs/time required to find it online, the costs/time to educate yourself about the industry, and creators, and the history of manga, anime, cartooning, animated film, animated film brought to television, comics as both an art form and a mass produced consumer product, or the costs/time spent learning the names and relative merits of all 493 Pokémon.

And while “time equals money”, your time spent acquiring knowledge means nothing, it’s only your money that communicates things outside of the internet and across oceans to the creators who are starving in Japan (and, well, subcontractors in S. Korea and China and who knows where next) (and I’ve yet to hear the impassioned call from any fan that they stop exploiting cheap labour from third countries, pay animators a living wage in Japan and elsewhere, and support both artistic integrity and basic production standards because our love of anime will support the higher costs.) (…just sayin’)

If you like it, buy it. It’s that simple.

If you can’t buy it: then you can’t have it.

You know where people get things only because they really, really want them? That’s communism, son. We don’t do communism.

And a whole internet is waiting in the wings with their very own, “Yes, I know, but…“

Save it.

Say, you know where people provide goods to those willing to pay money – enough money to cover costs (& with a profit to the seller?) That’s America!

Or more broadly, capitalism. Or even more broadly — for hybrid systems that provide education, health care, and basic needs under a European-style-socialist-safety-net with free trade and capitalist markets for luxuries and other goods, or even nominal-communist countries that still have active smuggling, pirating, and foreign-currency transactions — that’s The Market.

Even in places without “free” markets, there are black and grey markets — where the demand for goods overcomes ideology, philosophy, best intentions — and Marx, Lenin, Mao, Keynes, Friedman, Hayek and all the rest; Economics as a discipline, and as an academic study — are all subject to the universal truth that if I have something you want & I’m willing to part with it, you’re going to have to ‘pay’ for it one way or another.

Ad-supported models spring immediately to mind for the so-called-‘free’ internet: your attention is being sold; even if you don’t value it, there is money to made there.

Mutual exchange models used to proliferate, back in the earliest days: I have video tape X, you have video tape Y & we trade — and when fandoms were still courteous, polite affairs, I might extend something ‘free’ in the name of friendship (a history of past fair dealings) knowing that when you get something new, I’ll be the first person you think of.

A lot of “fans” complain that not enough is being done to specifically cater to their “fandom”, without defining terms or putting a price tag on it.

Oh sure, the only manga that you’d ever consider spending money on is so far out of the mainstream that there’s no way it’d ever be available for sale in a bookstore. Um. Well.

Inubaka? Freakin’ Dog Manga? Viz.

Cooking manga? Viz, Viz Signature, Del Rey — Iron Wok Jan was ComicsOne and when they went out of business it was rescued by DrMaster.

Maids? CMX, Seven Seas, Tokyopop.

Robots? Maid Robots? Butlers? Supernatural possibly-demonic Butlers?

Idols, Pop Stars, Rock Stars, Actors, washed-up idols mentoring ingenues, highschoolers working as managers for other highschoolers who have to cross-dress while not performing to hide the fact that they are entertainment superstars?

Ninja, Wizards & Witches, Guns, School Girls, School Girls with Guns — Eastern-myth influenced, Western-myth influenced, at least five takes on Journey to the West (with both monkey-boy shonen action heroes and bishonen angsty drama included) — Ukes and Semes — Fanboys, Otaku, Fujoshi — budding artists and cute art school students — female shogun and male debutantes — sci-fi of all stripes and a whole load of epic fantasy, reverse vampires, paper masters, time travel, time-travel-romance where our heroine is dislocated to a fantasy/medieval realm where only she can tame the wild warrior(s) and bring peace to either the past, the present, or both?

Blue Space Vampires from Beyond the Moon, replaying 18th century French drama with the barest gloss of futuristic overlay? Sci-fi adaptations of Shakespeare with flying horses, the heroine as an underground freedom fighter and the ruling duke re-imagined as a sentient tree with Ophelia borrowed from Hamlet to serve as high priestess? Space Garbagemen? A Photographer who blows things up when he takes their picture?

I’m not even digging all that deep here. Just some stuff I happen to have on the shelf (plus RomeoxJuliet, which I don’t own but soon will). And I haven’t even mentioned [yet] Afterschool Nightmare, Aqua/Aria, Crest/Banner of the Stars, Kashimashi, Shugo Chara, Someday’s Dreamers, Sundome, VB Rose, Yotsuba&!, Yubisaki Milk Tea or other personal favourites yet.

Dude. Dude. Dude. To claim that, well, “the titles I like just aren’t getting licensed” is to ignore A Freakin’ Bookstore full of licensed, translated manga, and a lot of it is really good, and really-weird-but-really-good, and creepy, and disturbing, and fun (and some of it is bland, and routine, and predictable but still worth reading in some ways) and it’s a lot like any other genre and/or format of books: there’s stuff you really should buy, and stuff publishers would like you to buy, and stuff you almost bought but didn’t [the marketing was off, or it just wasn’t popular, but then when more volumes come out you really wish you’d started buying it earlier]

And then there’s the MMF, where a round dozen reviewers [plus new participants] are telling you each month about a great title (with multiple volumes) that you previously missed, or ignored,

and then there’s the crap:

95% of everything is crap. Of Everything. 95% of the crap you download is crap, except you ignore it because it was free crap, and yet you insist that the market is failing because first, it served up crap for you to pirate (for free, even though others are paying for that crap and you insist that it’s still crap even as you download it) and second, because your highly-trained crap filter is about to overload from all the crap, even though the crap is free and you can’t be bothered to think about your free manga & anime past the reflex response to call it all crap (even though you download it all anyway) and what you call “crap” may in fact be my much beloved Full Moon O Sagashite and who the eff are you to call it crap?

I make fun because I care.

There is an awful lot of passive/aggressive resentment directed at manga/anime [especially the corporate producers] about how it all sucks — and yet they [said fans] compulsively consume everything and also point to how their compulsive consumption somehow makes them *experts*.

If it sucks so bad, why are you arguing with me on news sites, blogs, forums, and occasionally even in the comments on this very [poorly-trafficked] blog?

Why the passion? Whence the passion?

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I know the answer already: Manga and Anime are Just That Good.

but you can’t always pay for it. Not what it deserves anyway. and your frustration leads you to blame not your own poverty, or the disconnect between what you can afford and what you want —

but to instead blame the whole ‘problem’ [which isn’t a problem, unless you can’t afford licensed content] on the greed of licensees, or the ignorance of the ‘buying’ public [who pay for things, but for the wrong things, in your book] or on “censorous” American publishers who “butcher” your books and censor things outside of the ‘artist’s original intent’

[and actually that’s a fine argument but doesn’t excuse, explain, or exempt piracy]

And really, even before you began reading this post or I began writing it, you already have a position and my attempts at logic or persuasion are for naught:

Either You Are With Us, and you believe buying licensed manga is the best way to not only support the industry but also communicate what we like [through dollars spent] to licensees, licensors, and major publishing companies…

Or you imagine the real world doesn’t run on dollars, but rather some odd construct where desire, good will, unspoken intent, and hit counts on online sites amount to “sales” [no, they don’t] or that enthusiasm and a sheer number of posts about a property contribute to that property’s success [no, it doesn’t] or that your love, a Love so great it compels you to actively campaign against the financial interests of the people who produce your anime & manga, and who do so on the very barest of profit margins, because they happen to crassly ask for money (or who made minor compromises in their pursuit of major market acceptance) (or even just to make a few bucks off of TV) (and which is then a ‘major betrayal’ of the fanbase)

Pray tell: exactly what odd fandom you personally are so ever-loving loyal to that you can’t find anything else to financially support in the wide, wild market?

Really? Yeah, I get that you like things, even things that aren’t translated, but that automatically precludes you liking everything else? Wholly Effin Shiznats, I mean, everything?

One can only defend piracy if the government is specifically censoring the manga you want to read [and not the market, which determines what will sell, but the government, which censors things you want to buy but can’t because otherwise you’ll go to jail]

The fact that some manga are economically unfeasible is a fact of life, and regrettable, but not actionable. The unavailability of some manga is a fact of life, and while you’re welcome to pirate them [if one must read them] that doesn’t translate into an inalienable right and certainly isn’t an excuse. If you chose to obtain these from the Black and Grey markets, recognise you’re breaking the law and do so quietly; don’t make a fuss and be happy you were able to skate underneath the law.

Dear Manga & Anime “Fans”: What, are you communists? Front some $$ or sit down and STFU. — and you’re not fans, you’re whiny, entitled children

I buy a lot. I work at a job where I sell books, and at least in theory, sell manga [though at least a third of all manga sold through my store is just me ‘selling’ books to myself]

Honestly, I don’t want to read a single argument about manga piracy unless the author reveals just how much money they spend annually on manga, and if they don’t, just how they expect the industry to continue while they not only don’t support it but are actively killing it.

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Last year I spent $4895 on manga. [just manga]

You don’t have to beat me to have an opinion. but if you’re about to bring up a “I download scalations because the type of manga I like just doesn’t get published” I’m going to require a listing of all the unlicensed manga to which you refer, at least a cursory argument on why currently available licensed [LEGAL] manga doesn’t suit your particular kink, and [at best] a listing of untranslated manga you’ve bought via alternate channels [amazon.jp, for a start] because your love of the art is sufficient to prompt purchases of the manga even if you can’t read it. [yet. one also hopes you’re learning Japanese if you ‘love’ the manga this much]

What? I’m demanding too much?

Honestly, I’m only asking you to pay your way. I’m pointing out that there are legal alternatives. I’m stressing that in the lack of legal alternatives there is still no excuse for stealing. If you want to be an uncaring bastard and pirate content anyway, that’s certainly an option that is available but don’t excuse it, and most certain don’t try to pitch it as either noble or justified, ‘just because you’re a fan’

Don’t give me general arguments about why you pirate manga because it’s ‘not available’. Tokyopop just announced Hetalia Axis Powers — All I need is a Saint Young Men announcement, and I can claim there’s nothing to stop licensees, past money, and market demand.

An awful lot of digital ink has been spilled, and a furious back and forth no doubt still continues, over the latest iteration of Publishers vs Pirates, 2010 Manga Death Match Edition – News recently broke out all over that Seeming #1 Scanlation Site, OneManga.com, is getting out of the content business [currently they hope to continue as an online forum and community; best of luck with that, kids]

If you haven’t read any of the numerous articles & opinion pieces on the move, I’ll refer you to the two links above, which will take you to appropriate Google searches.

Working in a bookstore, I have a privileged position, in that I sit atop a multi-billion dollar distribution chain that includes not just a mammoth corporately-owned warehouse that serves 800+ book superstores but also a network of affiliated distributors—including Baker & Taylor, Bookazine, Partners West, and Ingram—not to mention direct-to-store weekly shipments from Macmillan, Random House, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster — and if I even look crosswise at a title, or sneeze, I can have it actually in the store in 4 business days. Maybe 5 if it has to ship from the opposite coast.

So as a manga fan, I have unprecedented access to books [that I could, you know, order into the store just because I’d like to sample ‘em regardless of whether I plan to buy them or think they might sell] that might make some of the rest of you drool, or perhaps foam at the mouth in a fit of envy.

Damn, but it’s good to be a bookseller.

Despite that, and because I know unsold books cost me twice (once to order, once to return – even though the stock is returnable it incurs additional costs) I don’t actually order all that much unless I plan to buy it. Last time I did the math, fully one-third of all manga sold through my bookstore was in fact just me buying the books for myself.

Major bookstore chain outpost. One manga fan. One Third. — I bring this up to point out that, yeah, well I’m a big ol’ geek fanboy and a collector besides but also: my store just doesn’t sell much manga.

[We’re in more of an art- and coffee-table book market. $80 hardcover full-colour clay-paper heavily-illustrated interior design books? some titles we’re selling in the hundreds]

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My point, and I do have one, is that as a fan I never felt the need to go to an online scanlation aggregator site because, hell, I can’t even get around to reading all the damn books that are available.

What, 1000 volumes a year released in English isn’t enough for you? Used to be more, and of course the backlist grows each and every year. & I don’t know which year you’d care to pick for the manga “revolution” but we’re not even 10 years in yet.

I’ve an—incomplete—database with [checking…] 8,872 titles in it, as of last Sunday, and I expressly don’t include a lot of older stuff that is out-of-print (technically; but still in warehouses) which just hasn’t sold in quantity in the last 3 years; My personal best guess is that there are 10,000 manga volumes available in licensed, translated English editions [most new, some used] and that at a book a day it’d take you 27 years to read them all.

If you read a book an hour for 16 hours a day, you still wouldn’t exhaust the amount of legal, licensed manga for another 20-21 months or so.

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Of course, copyrights and actual availability of physical books in a language you can read are a loser’s argument in the scanlation community, where the licensing of a title is mourned rather than celebrated—by those who maintain the fig-leaf-fiction of “promoting” unlicensed manga—and the whole business activity of publishing is actively ignored by the rest.

My favourite argument so far is that “Well, if the Japanese publishers had only embraced digital downloads and the fast translations provided by the scanlation community five years ago, we’d all have cheap translated manga, scanlators would get paid for their noble efforts, and Everyone Would Make Money”

I won’t call out individuals on this, but I’ve seen this argument (and subtle variations on it) quite a bit recently.

Here’s the thing:

Say I own a retail outlet. Shoplifters steal my merchandise, maybe to sell locally, maybe to sell just over the border because my stuff just isn’t available in Quebec.

Still theft.

Then say an accomplished shoplifter says, “Hey, your stuff isn’t available in Montreal; I’ll cut you a deal: me and my crew, we’ve lifted a tonne of stuff off you already, we’re selling it for just a few bucks apiece out the back of a lorry just off Saint Laurent Boulevard – and business is good. Say, I know know you’re mad about the whole ‘theft’ thing but let’s say I cut you in for a share of the profits if you just call off the cops?”

But I’m not selling things in Quebec. I’m not printing books in French, let alone Québécois and had no real desire to do so.

It’s my fault if people steal from me?

Consumer demand is there. Granted.

And demand not met through legitimate channels is fulfilled by ‘black’ and ‘grey’ markets

— doesn’t make it any more legal, and economic demand doesn’t excuse anything (so far as I know) — “free manga” advocates are now in the same realm as those advocating for legal marijuana and prostitution — except of course, advocates of those pastimes are ready and willing to spend money [and at a premium over market costs] if only it were possible to do so legally, and with whatever restrictions the government [or say, international copyright treaties —in a different context] might impose on their use of these products and services.

Just because you want it, doesn’t make it legal. Just because you want it, doesn’t make your acquisition of stolen goods moral. Just because you want it, doesn’t mean you get it.

And don’t rationalize or even glorify illegal means to procure it.

Sure, now you have what you want. Feel some shame. If you’re going to be a pirate, get an eyepatch and a parrot and some rum, and glory in your illegal status, but don’t expect companies to nod-and-wink at your activity, and when the force of law finally makes it to your secluded outpost, be prepared to be hanged [metaphorically]. It was a great run, but there are no Pirates in modern New Orleans, in the Chesapeake, in the Carolinas — and I’m pretty sure the Pirates of the Caribbean were sued by Disney out of existence in the 80s.

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Points:

1. Right now, Japanese publishers of [unlicensed] manga aren’t making any money on the vasty hoards of cheap-ass american otaku who download scanlations for free.

2. Scanlation sites make “no” money [though, personally, I’d love to have the “no” income from ad revenue on a Top 1000 ranked website] and they’re only supplying a service to fans who [not knowing what a comic shop or bookstore is] have ‘no other way’ to read manga.

3. See, here? I’m willing to cut some folks a break: Scanlators may in fact be trufans who make manga available to others merely because they have a love of the art, and the form, and the works. However, their efforts get wrapped up and subsumed by scanlation aggregators who most decidedly are in it for the money. And that’s the problem. But that’s a point most ignore, willing to conflate charitable scanlators with the [mercenary] sites where they find scanlations…

4. So, the argument goes, if only Aggregators* and Publishers could reach some sort of compact, both would profit and everyone wins. QED.

Here’s the thing: Publishers (Japanese originals or licensees of whatever stripe) own the property.

They don’t have to share.

And, most especially: Free markets go both ways. You can chose to buy or not buy based on whatever criteria you’d care to use: print quality, translation quality, price, online extras, post-purchase support, whim.

And sellers can choose not to sell based on whatever criteria they’d like: profit margins, profit vs cost, cost of localization, perceived problems with local moral standards, legal issues, or merest whim. No one has to sell you anything, or make available for sale of anything through alternate channels. That’s the seller’s choice in a free market. You’re entitled to nothing. They own it and can choose not to sell it. What? You have to have access, or be able to buy whatever you want? What are you, a socialist?

[As an anarcho-socialist myself, I’d love to hear your arguments, but as a person who has to earn a paycheck in a capitalist society, I’m also going to force you to make those arguments yourself — no way I’m doing it for you]

Some have argued: if only publishers would cooperate, I could make money, And they could make money, if only they weren’t so stiff

That is to say: If you and I agree, we both benefit.

That’s the crux of the common situation in game theory described as The Prisoners’ Dilemma

In the case of manga: if publishers would just stand shoulder-to-shoulder with scanlators, both could make a profit.

Yeah. But:

If scanlators [or more typically, their agents] screw over publishers, they retain all ad revenue. Actually, the aggregators screw over both publishers and scanlators so I don’t see why manga ‘fans’ support any of these sites except that they’re both lazy and stupid.

If creators & publishers stand by their legal, centuries-old rights, they miss out on whatever potential profits might be online, but they also guarantee their print profits and royalties – plus whatever additional profits might be gained through justified recourse in the courts.

So aggregation sites have no incentive to cooperate with publishers, and publishers have no logical reason to cooperate with fuckwads who steal content [steal from both publishers and volunteer scanlators] to post to the internet for ad revenue.

While game theory predicts that an ‘optimal’ solution might be reached if only the two parties co-operated, so long as each side has both motivation and economic incentives to ‘defect’ there is no possibility of any collaborative effort unless a major player in the market behaves irrationally.

[Crunchyroll is my best example of an irrational player, to say nothing of the deals they’ve effected in a short time — so I’m not saying it can’t happen, just that it likely won’t]

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I don’t have the answer. [if I had the answer, I’d also have a startup company] but lamenting what was ‘lost’ while ignoring the embarrassment of riches published each and every month smacks of both laziness and an ingrained contempt for the many professionals who work to translate and localize manga for your benefit.

And: How many fans complain that a translation is ‘wrong’ just because it differs from the first [hasty, occasionally incorrect] translation they read? Is this why scanlators and fan-subbers work so hard to post first? Not to satisfy artificial demand, but to register in the fanbase as the first, “real” translation? If you think ego and recognition have nothing to do with the fan community than I salute your commitment to naïveté but I also fear for the day when your illusions crash down around your ears.

Worrying Point One: Amazon, and Kindles.

Amazon wants to imply they’ve tripled the number of Kindles sold — or, failing that, that they’ve tripled the monthly sales of Kindles. Or something.

But actually: No. The exact wording used in the press release is that “the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price”.

They got that ‘triple’ in there, which was the important propaganda bit. —Say the month-on-month sales trends on Kindle was +2%, and now it’s +6% —that’s ‘triple’, as defined. Sales growth is good, and 6% is certainly better than 2%, but we’re only talking about one month of sales, and triple growth in the rate of sales is not triple sales — but the Agitprop arm of Amazon would like you to Get Excited! and not notice that the difference between selling 106 units instead of a predicted 102 units doesn’t amount to anything, really. And any high school student taking AP Microeconomics could run the supply/demand curves that would show that lowering the price increases sales. This “news” is like informing us the Normans invaded southern England in 1066.

The worrysome bit (to a bookseller, and I’m a bookseller) is that Amazon sells Kindles, and they sell some number of Kindles each month, and an even greater number of e-books each month, and week, and day.

Ah, yes. But whom do they sell those books to?

Worrying Point Two: E-Books, vs Books, vs Readers (that is to say, people who read).

There’s a long list of statistics about the book industry at ParaPublishing.com [cross-posted to http://bookstatistics.com/] and yes, it’s a wall-o-text-with-numbers-in-it so of course your eyes are going to glaze over. Fortunately, Robyn Jackson has done at least one pass through the data, to find some interesting trivia, and even a cursory search at the ParaPublishing site pulls up other statistics:

• In 2002: 89.9 million adults in the U.S. did not read a book. (that’s about a third)
• In 2001: 56.5% of households purchased at least one book (the flip side is of course that 43.5% of households—that’s about 130 million Americans—purchased *no* books)
• Customers 55 and older account for more than one-third of all books bought.
• Only 32% of the U.S. population has ever been in a bookstore.
• In 2008: More Books were sold on the internet than any other product, and the number is increasing. “Polling company Nielsen Online surveyed 26,312 people in 48 countries. 41% of internet users had bought books online. 58% of those online in Korea had purchased books online. In the U.S., 57.5-million had purchased books online.” [source]

Here’s my theory:

If the “average” person reads 12 books a year, while about half don’t read any, well: there is a small fraction reading an awful lot of books.

There is a core contingent of readers, like myself and most likely also including you, who don’t just read but read a hell of a lot of books. Not 1, not 10, but dozens and perhaps encroaching on hundreds yearly. We don’t just read books, we love books: and review them, and blog about them, and have homes that are quickly filling with them.

We’re the target market for e-books.

The rest of the beer-swilling, network-TV watching public who read at most one book a year (in 2008, according to one source more than half—55%—of Americans didn’t read any books at all) isn’t buying a Kindle or Nook because hell, they don’t buy books period.

While Jane Six-Pack and her husband skip books in favor of Us and People Magazines and tabloid & reality TV, book lovers are reading — and buying books, to the tune of a billion dollars monthly.

This is the market that Amazon hoped to catch: the 41% of internet users, 45% of the general population, 56.5% of households and as many other statistics you’d care to cite in this instance. Not the general population (who don’t read books) and not even techies & early adopters (who buy gadgets just because) or bargain hunters (who buy books for $3 or less but most certainly balk at even a $100 e-reader that, natch, forces you to spend additional money on the e-books.)

Kindle, and other e-book readers, are not a product for the masses. They’re for readers [as in, readers of books; that is to say people who read books] and when companies like Amazon try to pitch the appliances as a device for everyone they’re doing their customers a disservice. But Amazon desperately wants the Kindle to equate to books in the mind of the reading [and non-reading] public, and has been losing money for years attempting to leverage their online-bookstore-business into an e-bookstore-business — with some success, but also with a large percentage of customers who could give a rat’s ass about e, and nothing close to an air-tight lock on the market segment: in less than a year, B&N has managed to capture 20% of the ebook market.

Surprise, Surprise: hardcore readers, the ones most likely to buy e-books, happen to like booksellers with physical bookstores more. Because they like books. Because they’ve liked books for years [or decades] and while Amazon can compete on price (as can Costco and Sam’s Club, for that matter) there is still something to be said for atmosphere, thousands of books in stock, community goodwill, and a bookstore.

I’m not worried about Amazon.
[I’m actually more concerned about my employer, Big Box Books, neglecting their most important assets: the brick-and-mortar storefronts.]

Point Three: Scale. Millions. [*Pfssh.*] Millions are nothing.

Amazon proudly points out that (as an online retailer) their sales of instant, downloadable books to an online shopping public has exceeded the sales of one type of physical book which must be shipped from a warehouse to the consumer in a process that takes days, and incidentally, also costs more.

So. Um. Wait? Cheaper, instant books online outsell more expensive books with a delivery delay? Well, duh.

I think the news here is that e-books only outsell hardcovers [on Amazon] while paperbacks as a class are obviously still doing quite well, else Amazon would crow about ebooks as their number one format.

That is to say: cheap physical books still outsell cheap e-books when compared to the same book in a premium format. Or, to rephrase: cheap is cheap and e- is less important than price to most consumers.

The most recent numbers I can find [the most recent numbers in which I place faith & trust] are from publishers.org and the headline from a week ago, 14 July: “Publishers’ May Book Sales Increase 9.8%; Year To-Date Sales Increase by 11.6% – Year-To-Date Trade E-Book Sales Comprise 8.48% of Total Trade Market“ [emphasis mine].

So, AAP numbers:

Links to the press releases:
January 2010
February 2010
March 2010
April 2010
May 2010

& here are the percentage gains in ebook sales, year over year [2009 vs 2010]:

Jan 261.2%
Feb 339.3%
Mar 184.8%
Apr 127.4%
May 207.4%

Well, there’s the nail in my job-security-coffin: ebooks are taking over. Might as well retire.

Yeah. the thing is: if you sell one, and next year you sell 3, that’s a 200% increase. It’s not the percentage gain, but the scale with which you measure sales. here are the actual dollar figures from that same source

Jan $31.9 million
Feb $28.9 million
Mar $28.5 million
Apr $27.4 million
May $23.9 million

Millions are millions, and percentage gains year-to-year are fine and all, but let’s not lose sight of the larger market: Here’s the numbers from the Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/retail/ dating back to 1992, in a handy chart

[the red line on the graph is the One Billion Dollar Sales Mark — since 2000, a mark the bookstores have managed to meet or exceed 90% of the time. One Billion Dollars each month.]

There are five points I’d like to bring to your attention: 1. Since Jan. of 1992 (the earliest date for which the Census Bureau tracked sales) the bookstore market has cleared at least a half billion dollars each and every month. 2. that’s Billion with a capital ‘B’. 3. Since Jan. of 2009 the bookstore market has cleared a billion in sales (more or less; see graph above) each and every month 4. that’s Billion with a capital ‘B’.

5. the much vaunted e-book sales are still only millions (less than 40 millions, and for the last month reported, less than 30 millions each month) and that’s only 3-4% of the total book sales as reported by Amazon itself, The Association of American Publishers, & the US Census Bureau.

We’re wasting ink, bits, and skull-sweat on 4% of the market. Can you [dare to dream] imagine if a major bookseller announced it was going to spend $100 Million Dollars on a graphic novel initiative? (including kids books: comics, picture books, illustrated texts and Graphic Novels are at least 5% of the book market)

##

And any number of online pundits are claiming e-books will be fully half the market in a year or two. Um. OK?

From 30 Million to a Half Billion in two years? The book market is a hell of a lot bigger than you think, methinks. [And books are not CDs; books cannot be broken down into ‘tracks’ and the time investment in a book isn’t comparable to the max-70-min time investment in a CD — so your arguments equating digital sales of books to the meltdown in the music industry are incorrect on their face]

Digital books are handy, no doubt. But is their utility that much greater than an actual book?

For works that are already marginal, that wouldn’t have seen a print edition under current publishing regimes, well: the e-book is a gateway, and an excellent opportunity.

But for everything else, for the ‘books’ we’ve seen from major publishers for the past 40 years, is e- really better? Hm. Cheaper, maybe, and more convenient in some applications; but better? That remains to be seen.

##

Hey, you know what we do at a bookstore? We sell books.

Right now, I don’t care what the format is — hardcover, paperback; in stock today or ship-to-home from the warehouse: Every day I sell books, and at least half are books we don’t have in the store [yet]. We extend our expertise to help you buy books based on the barest fragments of half-remembered details. We fill in blanks. We help shape searches.

Say the dominant format 5 years from now is e-books.

Everyone who comes into the store today isn’t suddenly going to become smarter or savvier or remember more details in 5 years just because all books are e- — In fact, they’ll likely remember less. And who will be able to help?

Booksellers.

Web sites and searches only take you so far, and to date there is no replacement for expertise. As the world becomes more complex, we’ll rely on experienced guides that much more.

I don’t know if my current employer recognises this fact, but I’m certainly cognizant of it and should be able to make money on it no matter what the future retail environment looks like.

##

last week’s rankings
About the Charts
Analysis and Commentary Posts

The Weekly Charts:
Your Executive Summary and Index
Week ending 18 July 2010

Internet Archive link: http://www.archive.org/details/MangaRankingsWeekEnding18July2010

Manga Top 500

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto 48 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [437.1] ::
2. ↑5 (7) : Ouran High School Host Club 14 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2010 [409.5] ::
3. ↓-1 (2) : Vampire Knight 10 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jun 2010 [385.8] ::
4. ↓-1 (3) : Hellsing 10 – Dark Horse, Jun 2010 [381.7] ::
5. ↓-1 (4) : Maximum Ride 1 – Yen Press, Jan 2009 [364.0] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Naruto 47 – Viz Shonen Jump, Feb 2010 [342.6] ::
7. ↓-1 (6) : Maximum Ride 2 – Yen Press, Oct 2009 [337.6] ::
8. ↑1 (9) : Bleach 31 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [309.3] ::
9. ↑9 (18) : One Piece 54 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jul 2010 [300.9] ::
10. ↓-2 (8) : Negima! 26 – Del Rey, May 2010 [295.6] ::

[more]

Top Imprints
Number of titles ranking in the Manga 500:

Viz Shonen Jump 108
Tokyopop 68
Yen Press 48
Viz Shojo Beat 46
Viz Shonen Jump Advanced 32
Vizkids 27
Del Rey 24
HC/Tokyopop 17
Viz 15
Dark Horse 14

[more]

Top 50 Series:

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto – Viz Shonen Jump [1,008.9] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Vampire Knight – Viz Shojo Beat [811.0] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Maximum Ride – Yen Press [723.9] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Ouran High School Host Club – Viz Shojo Beat [611.5] ::
5. ↔0 (5) : Bleach – Viz Shonen Jump [533.3] ::
6. ↑1 (7) : Alice in the Country of Hearts – Tokyopop [521.2] ::
7. ↑1 (8) : One Piece – Viz Shonen Jump [503.9] ::
8. ↓-2 (6) : Warriors – HC/Tokyopop [495.4] ::
9. ↑2 (11) : Black Bird – Viz Shojo Beat [486.8] ::
10. ↓-1 (9) : Negima! – Del Rey [476.8] ::

[more]

Top 50 New Releases:
(Titles releasing/released This Month & Last)

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto 48 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [437.1] ::
2. ↑5 (7) : Ouran High School Host Club 14 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2010 [409.5] ::
3. ↓-1 (2) : Vampire Knight 10 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jun 2010 [385.8] ::
4. ↓-1 (3) : Hellsing 10 – Dark Horse, Jun 2010 [381.7] ::
8. ↑1 (9) : Bleach 31 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [309.3] ::
9. ↑9 (18) : One Piece 54 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jul 2010 [300.9] ::
13. ↑50 (63) : Fullmetal Alchemist 23 – Viz, Jul 2010 [266.5] ::
16. ↓-4 (12) : Haruhi Suzumiya The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (novel) – Little, Brown & Co., Jul 2010 [255.2] ::
17. ↑18 (35) : Nana 21 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2010 [247.0] ::
20. ↑2 (22) : Maid Sama! 5 – Tokyopop, Jun 2010 [230.8] ::

[more]

Top 50 Preorders:

22. ↑17 (39) : Maximum Ride 3 – Yen Press, Aug 2010 [223.4] ::
51. ↑19 (70) : Warriors Ravenpaw’s Path 3 – HC/Tokyopop, Aug 2010 [154.5] ::
74. ↑49 (123) : Return to Labyrinth 4 – Tokyopop, Aug 2010 [131.8] ::
88. ↑153 (241) : Hetalia Axis Powers 1 – Tokyopop, Sep 2010 [120.6] ::
131. ↑72 (203) : Berserk 34 – Dark Horse, Sep 2010 [95.2] ::
211. ↓-49 (162) : Naruto 49 – Viz Shonen Jump, Oct 2010 [61.7] ::
225. ↑102 (327) : Alice in the Country of Hearts 4 – Tokyopop, Aug 2010 [58.2] ::
238. ↑84 (322) : Black Bird 5 – Viz Shojo Beat, Aug 2010 [54.0] ::
253. ↓-25 (228) : Spice & Wolf (manga) 3 – Yen Press, Nov 2010 [50.8] ::
257. ↑66 (323) : Negima! 28 – Del Rey, Oct 2010 [49.1] ::

[more]

Even though the most recent NYT manga bestsellers seem brand new because they posted 3 days ago, in fact their charts as posted are the same vintage as mine, posted yesterday.

Don’t confuse ‘newly posted’ with ‘new’.

Oh, and I’m still waiting for the Times to both name their sources and explain their methods. If you click on those two links you’ll see my posts spelling out my methodology used to develop the charts… but the Times still reports “bestsellers” as Fact when in fact they themselves report the system can be gamed.

Just sayin’.

enjoy your NYT charts.

“Bestsellers” — For an author and publisher, the New York Times Bestseller imprimatur is money in the bank. They proudly emblazon said status on the cover of the book, and the lucky wordsmith will forever bear the sobrequet of “New York Times Bestselling Author”.

In the publishing world, this is a big deal.

Other papers-of-record (The USA Today list, for example, which is not only longer but more inclusive and — on it’s face, at least — much more democratic) and even major retailers also maintain bestseller lists, but they’ll never be able to conjure the same magic as the New York Times. Something about old New York’s status as a publishing centre, and the 70 years that the NYT has published their charts, are what make their bestsellers ‘the’ bestsellers, but even Wikipedia can point you to older charts, and the controversy surrounding the term, and the different ways the term ‘bestselling’ is used depending on context, region, and even things like the format of the book and the venue in which it is sold.

##

Some reading and references for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestseller#The_making_of_a_bestseller
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32336521/ns/business-us_business/page/2/ “Secrets of the Amazon best-seller list”
http://image.examiner.com/x-49044-Book-Publishing-Examiner~y2010m5d18-The-Bestseller-List

Via Google Books, an excerpt from the New York Times Book Review on manipulation of the charts in 2000. Or you can read about how it was done in 1995. Or you can read about it on the Freakonomics blog, hosted by the New York Times.

(And I should note it was a recent post by Seth Godin, Payola, that prompted me to do this additional research.)

It’s all hokum and snake oil. Hell, any wonk with a blog and too much free time on his hands can compile a chart. [*ahem*]

##

Hi, my name is Matt. This is RocketBomber.com, and this is where I post a bestseller chart for manga.

I attepted a reckoning of all graphic novels last year (2009) and managed to keep it up for a couple of months, but in order to continue that I’d have to quit my job and do nothing but data entry, number-crunching, and database maintenance for a full 40-50 hours each week.

So I’m going back to my roots [2007] and concentrating on manga, which really helps as it’s a fairly well defined subset of the larger problem, and also full of books I like (which keeps me engaged in an otherwise dull activity)

So what’s manga? Well, “I know it when I see it” and also most online retailers already use the category so with few exceptions, I just click a link. There are some books which many retailers lump in with the manga (and Amazon’s sorting scheme or search hueristics are just plain silly sometimes) so I often skip some books, currently including but not limited to Usagi Yojimbo, Scott Pilgrim, Avatar comics, Twilight comics, and the Odd Thomas graphic novels from Dean Koontz & Queenie Chan — Some of these are great books, just not manga.

The core of the charts is made up of data from three sites: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.

Once a week, I visit each site to check their Graphic Novel categories, and I sort the search results by ‘bestselling’. The links above will pull up exactly that.

I then click through, page after page, and type the titles into a spreadsheet in the order that they are ranked on the sales site. [this is the hard part]

And once I have a full list, I assign points to the books depending on how highly they rank. Add up the points each title earns (and add on similar data from a half-dozen second-tier sales sites) to get a composite score, and there’s your ranking.

In concept, it’s that simple. If you’d like to go in depth into the process click here

##

Right now I use nine source sites

• Online Bookstores: Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Borders, Hastings, & Powell’s
• Plus Amazon’s Manga Category Listings & their Manga Hourly Bestsellers
• with some additional input from Buy.com & Deepdiscount.com

The bestsellers from each site are scored, compiled, and ranked in a Top 500, and the data is also used (occasionally with a smidge of extra math) to compile a Top 50 Series chart and rankings for new releases and preorders.

##

boilerplate © and CC:

Manga estimated online sales rankings compiled by Matt Blind for the benefit of the Manga Fan, Creator, and Publishing Communities and posted in the rankings category at RocketBomber.com. Derived from publicly available information; if you feel your intellectual property has been infringed upon then I’d advise you to chill, consult your lawyers again, maybe grow a thicker skin, and then also recognise that you’re getting a free, weekly link directly to your lovely offerings [right at the top of each archived chart, in case you missed it] on a blog that specifically caters to fans of the medium. Maybe you should be sending me money, or free manga, as opposed to getting your boxers/panties in a bunch over imaginary copyrights.

All data as posted released back for your re-use under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike license (be free, little numbers, go frolic and prosper) with merely a humble request that you link to this blog rather than steal, and that any derivative works include an attribution and also remain free to all.

##

If you have questions, corrections, or concerns that should be addressed in the body of this post, please send an email to matt [at] rocketbomber [dot] com. Questions, corrections or concerns placed in the comments below will be addressed in a more casual manner after I’ve downed a few beers and am feeling saucy.

The Core of the Charts is made up of data from three sites: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.

Once a week, I visit each site to check their Manga categories, and I sort the search results by ‘bestselling’. [The links above will pull up exactly that.]

I then click through, page after page, and type the titles into a spreadsheet in the order that they are ranked on the sales site. [this is the hard part]

And once I have a full list, I assign points to the books depending on how highly they rank. Add up the points each title earns (and add on similar data from a half dozen second-tier sales sites) to get a composite score, and there’s your ranking.

In concept, it’s that simple.

##

not all sources are treated equally:

Class 5

Overstock.com & Buy.com

These two sources have one (annoying) thing in common: their book listings have a Comics/Graphic Novel Category, but do not break the listings down any further than that. So, while a researcher knowlegeable in manga and related books can certainly go through dozens of pages to find manga mixed in here and there, it’s almost not worth the effort. [and yet, I make that effort…] The current iteration of buy.com has another limiter: their bestseller list for ‘graphic novels’ only goes out 10 pages (20 per page) — when I can’t find enough manga mixed into the GNs to fill out a top 100, I have to stop.

Given these limitations, I’ve discounted these two sources — such that a book that garnering #1 honours only merits 5 points, and I only look up a [maximum] 100 titles from each.

Distro:

[yeah, those poor little numbers seem all but lost in the bottom corner — that’s because all charts in this post were made to the same scale, so very soon you’ll see that yes, in fact the numbers here are kinda insignificant]

Class 4

Hastings.com, Powells.com, and DeepDiscount.com

These are still small fry, relatively speaking, and so I only consider and score a top 100 to match the Amazon spot checks (and the two Class 5 sites) — but they each have a usable manga category listing [*angelic chord, with sunbeam*] and so we’re able to stretch a search just a bit further into the backlist:

For each of these three sites I log and score 100 titles, plus 30 more. The extras at the end are only scored at one-tenth of a point each (minus another really miniscule fraction as we go down the list, to aid in breaking ties) — but, given the quality of the source data the #1 ranked title gets 10 points.

The flat line hugging the bottom of the graph at the right are the ‘extras’ — not quite zero, as each extra is scored at one-tenth point. —It’s not enough to move an individual title more than one spot up or down in the rankings (if that) but it does add up for the series ranking, and this +30% a great way delve deeper into the mid- and backlist.

Class 3

Books-a-Million

Not quite in a class by itself [I’m currently re-evaluating Chapters of Canada for inclusion in these charts] but still not-ready-for-prime-time and also just a regional bookstore (and marginal online) player — that said, I like the Books-a-Million site, it gives me results I can use, and also reflects a portion of the business that isn’t covered by the Amazon/B&N oligarchic hegemony.

I double up on BAM, looking into a top 200 (and out an additonal 33%, another 70 or so titles scored at just one-tenth of a point) and the scores are also doubled [#1=20 points] though there is a slightly different distro:

Class 2

Amazon Hourly Bestsellers

Amazon doesn’t just get counted twice, I actually check in to Amazon five times a week. The first four are quick checks: The 100 Manga Bestsellers for a given [mostly random] hour on each of four consecutive days — typically Thursday-Sunday each week, though it can shift depending on my work schedule.

Theoretically: For each of Amazon’s Hourly lists, #1 should get 10 points, with a now familiar slide down from there.

Since Amazon doesn’t know any actual books from its asshole elbow and relies on user tags, half-assed keyword searches, and guesswork advanced hueristics to determine category placement and search results, often I have to discard 15-25% of Amazon’s posted list because it’s just not manga. Sometimes it’s not even comics, let alone manga related.

So a chart would look like this:

except the Hourly Bestsellers are a top 100 — no more, no less — so any skipped titles affect our imputs: the area shaded in green on the chart above represents the 25% [max] of each list that wasn’t manga and so can’t be scored. Actually, it’s 4 charts, so let’s multiply that out

And suddenly we’re looking at up to 4 points dropped. Big deal, right? 4 whole points?
Actually, that can be the difference between #10 and #11 — between making the chart everyone reads and just missing it, to end up as background data.

What’s a math geek to do?

Well, in this case, I overcome Amazon’s deficiencies by running the Hourly Bestsellers [as scored above] through their own mini-spreadsheet to get a transitional ranking, usually ending up with 150-190 titles (though I’ve made allowances for up to 250 unique listings using this method) and scored like this:

with a #1 equal to 30 points (there are 4 source charts rolled into this one) and an all-new, much improved points distribution that approximates what would have been the sum of four top 100 charts [though discounted at the top by 10 points, because Amazon pissed me off, making me do extra work]

Class 1

Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.

Again, these are the biggest sites, my best sources, and [well, Borders gets a pass…] the only online retailers of books doing Hundreds of Millions of dollars in biz. It’s the big time; this is main show.

Amazon was counted above (4 times!) with their hourly bestsellers, but I also load up their manga category listings once a week for a deeper look into how the wanna-be-monopolist is doing with manga sales. Along side, I load up B&N and Borders listings for the same books, and together, these 3 sources make up half the books (52% by number plus or minus 1%)(plus or minus because the total number of books can vary due to insufficient data from sources) but 80% of the total points (81.675% as weighted – for those math freaks who really must know).

I pull a top 300, each, from The Big Three — +33%, another 100 titles at one-tenth point each, to track the head of the long tail — and the results are also given greater weight, given the greater sales volume of these sites. #1 scores a full 60 points, & the following distribution looks something like this:

##

Assuming all sites were not only comparable, but interchangable — with the same titles in the same order on each ‘bestseller’ list — then given the points & weighting as assigned above, the chart would look something like this each week:

[itsonlyamodel]

[/itsonlyamodel]
[please note the extra zero added onto the y-axis; now we’re talking hundreds of points, not dozens.]

Of course, the differences are the point of the exercise.

instead of the same 400 titles every week, the spreadsheet tracks many, many more — and the actual distribution looks like this

[from the charts as posted, week ending 11 July 2010]

you might have to scroll right for a bit to catch all that.

So, even with very crude constructs to shape it, once the real world data is shoe-horned into my spreadsheet we get results that seem to match much more complicated models of the retail market. If anything, I assign too much weight to the midlist titles (say, from #30 on down to #500 or so) but this ‘error’ or distortion is fine by me, as it helps differentiate and sort a lot of same-same-y seeming titles past Naruto, Bleach, and Maximum Ride.

##

For me [at the moment] this is just a fun hobby. (Yes, math is fun.) (…back off)

So if you’re about to send me an email objecting to this point or that about my method and why I’m wrong, wrong, wrong please consider:

• I do this part time.
• I do it for free.
• I’m at the mercy of my sources. Don’t complain to me: take it to Amazon.
• My charts are not meant to be authoritative or even correct. I compile comparative rankings of manga titles and series based on online sources (as discovered, and publicly available) and while I hope to approximate actual sales numbers, I don’t have access to that data and never will. These aren’t even estimates, as I only know that “title A beat title B” for a given week, and only if the sales sites I reference are being honest with their reporting. I’m doing the best with what I have, folks.
• That said, this twice-removed approach brings up some really interesting starting points for discussion, analysis, and debate.

##

Additional inquires about the charts can be emailed to me: the contact info is lying around somewhere and genuine questions will be answered with genuine responses.

This is the latest iteration of a long experimental process; additional info on methods and procedures can be found here[v2] and here[v1]

last week’s rankings

The Weekly Charts:
Your Executive Summary and Index
Week ending 11 July 2010

Internet Archive link: http://www.archive.org/details/MangaRankingsWeekEnding11July2010

Manga Top 500

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto 48 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [441.7] ::
2. ↑1 (3) : Vampire Knight 10 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jun 2010 [411.5] ::
3. ↑1 (4) : Hellsing 10 – Dark Horse, Jun 2010 [399.8] ::
4. ↑1 (5) : Maximum Ride 1 – Yen Press, Jan 2009 [366.6] ::
5. ↓-3 (2) : Naruto 47 – Viz Shonen Jump, Feb 2010 [354.6] ::
6. ↑1 (7) : Maximum Ride 2 – Yen Press, Oct 2009 [350.5] ::
7. ↑27 (34) : Ouran High School Host Club 14 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2010 [349.8] ::
8. ↓-2 (6) : Negima! 26 – Del Rey, May 2010 [336.2] ::
9. ↔0 (9) : Bleach 31 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [293.2] ::
10. ↓-2 (8) : Vampire Knight 9 – Viz Shojo Beat, Feb 2010 [285.1] ::

[more]

Top Imprints
Number of titles ranking in the Manga 500:

Viz Shonen Jump 108
Tokyopop 65
Viz Shojo Beat 44
Yen Press 42
Viz Shonen Jump Advanced 31
Vizkids 26
Del Rey 25
Viz 25
Dark Horse 17
HC/Tokyopop 17

[more]

Top 50 Series:

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto – Viz Shonen Jump [1,035.6] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Vampire Knight – Viz Shojo Beat [851.4] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Maximum Ride – Yen Press [734.0] ::
4. ↑12 (16) : Ouran High School Host Club – Viz Shojo Beat [555.7] ::
5. ↓-1 (4) : Bleach – Viz Shonen Jump [516.5] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Warriors – HC/Tokyopop [497.6] ::
7. ↑2 (9) : Alice in the Country of Hearts – Tokyopop [489.5] ::
8. ↔0 (8) : One Piece – Viz Shonen Jump [484.7] ::
9. ↓-3 (6) : Negima! – Del Rey [482.4] ::
10. ↔0 (10) : Haruhi Suzumiya – Yen Press [480.9] ::

[more]

Top 50 New Releases:
(Titles releasing/released This Month & Last)

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto 48 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [441.7] ::
2. ↑1 (3) : Vampire Knight 10 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jun 2010 [411.5] ::
3. ↑1 (4) : Hellsing 10 – Dark Horse, Jun 2010 [399.8] ::
7. ↑27 (34) : Ouran High School Host Club 14 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jul 2010 [349.8] ::
9. ↔0 (9) : Bleach 31 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [293.2] ::
12. ↑11 (23) : Haruhi Suzumiya The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (novel) – Little, Brown & Co., Jul 2010 [258.0] ::
16. ↓-3 (13) : Soul Eater 3 – Yen Press, Jun 2010 [231.1] ::
18. ↑143 (161) : One Piece 54 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jul 2010 [226.5] ::
19. ↓-8 (11) : Samurai Deeper Kyo vols 37-38 collection – Del Rey, Jun 2010 [216.1] ::
22. ↑24 (46) : Maid Sama! 5 – Tokyopop, Jun 2010 [205.8] ::

[more]

Top 50 Preorders:

39. ↑93 (132) : Maximum Ride 3 – Yen Press, Aug 2010 [169.7] ::
70. ↑4 (74) : Warriors Ravenpaw’s Path 3 – HC/Tokyopop, Aug 2010 [135.0] ::
123. ↔0 (123) : Return to Labyrinth 4 – Tokyopop, Aug 2010 [100.3] ::
162. ↓-37 (125) : Naruto 49 – Viz Shonen Jump, Oct 2010 [80.2] ::
198. ↓-31 (167) : Dance in the Vampire Bund 8 – Seven Seas, Aug 2010 [65.5] ::
203. ↑24 (227) : Berserk 34 – Dark Horse, Sep 2010 [63.2] ::
228. ↓-24 (204) : Spice & Wolf (manga) 3 – Yen Press, Nov 2010 [57.0] ::
241. ↑160 (401) : Hetalia Axis Powers 1 – Tokyopop, Sep 2010 [54.1] ::
256. ↓-63 (193) : Yotsuba&! 9 – Yen Press, Dec 2010 [52.0] ::
317. ↓-91 (226) : Finder Series 1 Target in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Sep 2010 [39.3] ::

[more]

last week’s rankings

The Weekly Charts:
Your Executive Summary and Index
Week ending 4 July 2010

Internet Archive link: http://www.archive.org/details/MangaRankingsWeekEnding4July2010

Manga Top 500

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto 48 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [440.6] ::
2. ↑1 (3) : Naruto 47 – Viz Shonen Jump, Feb 2010 [423.4] ::
3. ↓-1 (2) : Vampire Knight 10 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jun 2010 [421.1] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Hellsing 10 – Dark Horse, Jun 2010 [393.4] ::
5. ↑1 (6) : Maximum Ride 1 – Yen Press, Jan 2009 [361.8] ::
6. ↓-1 (5) : Negima! 26 – Del Rey, May 2010 [353.6] ::
7. ↔0 (7) : Maximum Ride 2 – Yen Press, Oct 2009 [344.8] ::
8. ↔0 (8) : Vampire Knight 9 – Viz Shojo Beat, Feb 2010 [301.0] ::
9. ↔0 (9) : Bleach 31 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [279.7] ::
10. ↑1 (11) : Alice in the Country of Hearts 1 – Tokyopop, Feb 2010 [266.5] ::

[more]

Top Imprints
Number of titles ranking in the Manga 500:

Viz Shonen Jump 100
Tokyopop 61
Viz Shojo Beat 46
Yen Press 41
Viz Shonen Jump Advanced 29
Dark Horse 28
Viz 26
Del Rey 25
Vizkids 25
HC/Tokyopop 15
Viz Signature 15

[more]

Top 50 Series:

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto – Viz Shonen Jump [1,115.1] ::
2. ↔0 (2) : Vampire Knight – Viz Shojo Beat [870.8] ::
3. ↔0 (3) : Maximum Ride – Yen Press [715.4] ::
4. ↑1 (5) : Bleach – Viz Shonen Jump [519.2] ::
5. ↑1 (6) : Warriors – HC/Tokyopop [506.8] ::
6. ↑1 (7) : Negima! – Del Rey [469.8] ::
7. ↑1 (8) : Black Butler – Yen Press [464.8] ::
8. ↓-4 (4) : One Piece – Viz Shonen Jump [459.6] ::
9. ↔0 (9) : Alice in the Country of Hearts – Tokyopop [445.6] ::
10. ↑7 (17) : Haruhi Suzumiya – Yen Press [439.0] ::

[more]

Top 50 New Releases:
(Titles releasing/released This Month & Last)

1. ↔0 (1) : Naruto 48 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [440.6] ::
3. ↓-1 (2) : Vampire Knight 10 – Viz Shojo Beat, Jun 2010 [421.1] ::
4. ↔0 (4) : Hellsing 10 – Dark Horse, Jun 2010 [393.4] ::
9. ↔0 (9) : Bleach 31 – Viz Shonen Jump, Jun 2010 [279.7] ::
11. ↑23 (34) : Samurai Deeper Kyo vols 37-38 collection – Del Rey, Jun 2010 [265.0] ::
13. ↔0 (13) : Soul Eater 3 – Yen Press, Jun 2010 [247.8] ::
15. ↓-3 (12) : Spice & Wolf (novel) 2 – Yen Press, Jun 2010 [241.9] ::
16. ↑34 (50) : Fairy Tail 11 – Del Rey, Jun 2010 [230.4] ::
22. ↓-8 (14) : Battle Angel Alita Last Order 13 – Viz, Jun 2010 [211.9] ::
23. ↑35 (58) : Haruhi Suzumiya The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya (novel) – Little, Brown & Co., Jul 2010 [210.0] ::

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Top 50 Preorders:

74. ↑1 (75) : Warriors Ravenpaw’s Path 3 – HC/Tokyopop, Aug 2010 [131.0] ::
123. ↑64 (187) : Return to Labyrinth 4 – Tokyopop, Aug 2010 [93.3] ::
125. ↑14 (139) : Naruto 49 – Viz Shonen Jump, Oct 2010 [91.9] ::
132. ↑20 (152) : Maximum Ride 3 – Yen Press, Aug 2010 [88.9] ::
167. ↑69 (236) : Dance in the Vampire Bund 8 – Seven Seas, Aug 2010 [75.1] ::
193. ↓-15 (178) : Yotsuba&! 9 – Yen Press, Dec 2010 [65.4] ::
204. ↓-2 (202) : Spice & Wolf (manga) 3 – Yen Press, Nov 2010 [62.4] ::
226. ↑25 (251) : Finder Series 1 Target in the View Finder – DMP Juné, Sep 2010 [57.7] ::
227. ↓-9 (218) : Berserk 34 – Dark Horse, Sep 2010 [57.3] ::
311. ↓-5 (306) : Junjo Romantica 12 – Tokyopop Blu, Aug 2010 [39.4] ::

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