I'm glad my suspicions were wrong. Simon from Icarus clears it all up here.

Okie Dokie!

4/8/10 - The word Scam in the subject was exed out since I was proven wrong. I apologize for jumping the gun. See my more recent post here.


Note the question mark besides the subject. I suspect that the copy of Delivery Cupid on Kindle is a scam. I base this on conjecture. I'll retract my suspicions if I get information to the contrary.

Five days ago Delivery Cupid was made available via Amazon Kindle.

I noticed today that the buy feature has been disabled. This could be because the original publisher made a change to the listing, and it has to be filtered through Amazon before it goes live again (a change in the price will cause this). It could also be because Libre complained that someone without the rights to this title put it up on Kindle.

I suspect someone who doesn't own the rights to the English version of Delivery Cupid created a Kindle account and put the title up to attempt to profit on it. I don't believe Libre put this title on Kindle. The main reason I suspect this is because they are using a cover treatment they wouldn't automatically have the rights to.

Here is my full argument:

1. Anyone can get a Digital Text account with Amazon to publish works on the Kindle. The process is relatively simple.

2. You can list the publisher name as any company you want when you list a title on Kindle. This is an open field in your listing information the same as the title of the book. Sometimes I put Yaoi Press as our publisher name, sometimes I put Yaoi Prose. I could put Libre if I wanted to.

3. Delivery Cupid was published by Broccoli Books (through their Boysenberry imprint) which closed its operations in the USA.

One could assume they no longer have an interest in the titles they formerly licensed in English. Someone unscrupulous might think they can get away with putting Delivery Cupid on Kindle thinking that there is no company left in the USA to dispute their ownership.

4. Libre wouldn't have rights to Broccoli Book's treatment of the cover. Such as the English logo they designed. However, the cover image for Delivery Cupid is exactly the same as Broccoli's old cover, except that someone photoshopped out the word 'Boysenberry.' This was the imprint name that used to be inside the top purple border.

Here is the original Japanese cover that Libre designed.

Broccoli changed this considerably when they licensed it. Although Libre owns the rights to the main cover image, the logo and overall cover design was done by Broccoli. Libre would not have a right to use it without their permission. The same goes to Broccoli's English translation. Translation is not a science. It's subjective. Libre is not supposed to copy and paste Broccoli's translation, but should hire their own translator to do it from scratch.

I wanted to download a sample of this book to see if the pages are scans or high resolution digital files. As I said, the title is down on Amazon right now. I can't get the free sample on Kindle for the PC to check it out.

If they are high resolution scans it may be CJ Michalski herself who is publishing it on Kindle. She has a polish last name, and may have a Polish-American husband who steered her toward Kindle. She would likely have the blessing of the former licensor (and possibly Libre, though they are pretty strict about this sort of thing).

High resolution pages could have also been put up by a former employee of Broccoli USA or someone at a printing company they once used. Low resolution page scans would certainly point toward a Kindle scam.

M.A. Sambre, artist of Dark prince and the upcoming sequel Bastard King, was the guest of honor at last weekend's Yaoi Con in the Netherlands. She also ran a table selling Yaoi Press graphic novels and merchandise.

"Yaoi press is well known in Netherlands and a lot of people had our books or had completed the series they like at the Con," Sabre said. She also reported that the first year con was well attended with lots of cosplayers and the staff did a great job. She felt she was very well cared for.

This convention sounds like a great success! It's wonderful to see what a global phenomenon yaoi is.

The Yaoi Review is offering different prizes in their latest contest. Half a page of Bastard King (upcoming sequel to Dark Prince) is one of the strips available for captioning. Have a look. CONTEST #4: Funny Dialogue Contest

This post is a follow-up to Deb Aoki's great iPad article on About.com. I gave this quote: "I'm not as hopeful about the iPad as I was this morning. The iTunes store just rejected Zesty, our tamest graphic novel, without citing a reason. We thought this could be a bright spot for us akin to our sales on Amazon Kindle, but we're very discouraged right now."

I would be the last person to sneer at any digital method that gives our readers a way to purchase our books. I've been lauding how wonderful Kindle has been for Yaoi Press for some time now on Twitter. We've had great success offering our titles online with Netcomics and Digital Manga.

I will continue to pursue all platforms for digital distribution because that's where the business has been going for years now. It makes sense for publishers. The archaic book store returns model is crippling the industry. Printing costs continue to rise. Shipping and warehousing physical books is an enormous expense both for the publisher and the consumer, and limits access geographically. All these ancillary expenses takes away income that could be given to writers and artists who desperately need it.

It's true that the Kindle app store gives us defacto iTunes distribution, but this has been for tiny-screened iPhones. The iPad may change things, but it was just released and most of our audience (under 26 and living with parents) don't have the money to run out and buy one.

What they all have is cell phones, because it's considered a necessity. Their cost tolerance is very high for cell phone technology. For instance, a college student I knew who lived with her parents earned $200 a month at a weekend job. She spent $90 a month for her cell phone plan.

We still have the tiny screen to contend with. I don't know how the Kindle app works on the iPhone, but full pages where people have to zoom in and out to read it is what we were trying to avoid. I see someone buying one manga with this small screen hassle and then giving up on them.

We were reformatting our books for viewing on the iPhone. Our provider warned us Apple was strict. This is why we picked Zesty as our first title to launch.

Zesty is not yaoi as many people define it. There are no sex scenes. It's kisses and comedy.

People who've read Zesty may be saying, "I bet it was the 'strictly dickly' line." We took this line out for our submission to Apple:

Original Graphic Novel -


iTunes:


Our provider warned us they were fickle about what they accepted and rejected. He cited one book that was rejected because it showed a character smoking.

What he described to me was similar to my experience with Canadian Customs. One time they rejected a case of Cain vol. 3 (Mature Readers), the next day they allow in cases of Happy Yaoi Yum Yum (Adults Only). It depends on the customs agent on duty and how deep they dig.

I wish I had an iPhone so I could see if any gay themed media is accepted. Please comment if you have an answer for me.

I accept every restriction to keep titles out of the hands of children. I support these restrictions. They enable parents to be able to decide what their kids should have access to. New platforms need to enable parents to restrict their children's access to what content they choose. The medium itself should not act as parents for their users.

Labels: ipad, itunes, yaoi

Hello All,

Please consider bidding on one of these auctions supporting the Haiti relief effort:

Yaoi Merchandise Bundle

***New 1/20/10 Artwork Auctions for Haiti***

If you're not in the position to be spending money you can still help by spreading awareness. I'd appreciate promotion for the auctions, but there are other ways you can use your blogs, web sites, journals, or gallery pages to help.

Promote this Google link. People can donate to Unicef or CARE directly from that page, and they've linked other major charities supporting relief efforts. They offer a gadget you can embed in your site that will help victims and their families connect to a central hub of information:



This is Yamila. I've very been extremely busy with launching a new imprint. I heard a little bit of news about the earthquakes in Haiti here and there, but hadn't stopped to learn about anything first hand. This morning I received emails from two European studios that work for Yaoi Press asking for me to help promote their charity efforts for Haiti.

Haiti is in the United States front yard. It's closer to us than my mother's hometown in Puerto Rico. The Haitians are relying on the USA to help them right now. I'm ashamed that I had to get emails from KOSEN and Studio Kawaii in Spain before I made an effort to help.

The UN says earthquakes in Haiti are the "Worst disaster we've ever dealt with." 200,000 people are estimated dead. Three to five million were caught in the epicenter, which is the capitol of Haiti and it's most populous area. The suffering there right now is unimaginable. I hope we can rally for the plight of these people.

Please go here to read the free preview of Incubus Master part 1:

http://www.everythingyaoi.com/Incubus_Master_Part_1.htm


The erotic illustration is obscured in the file above, but you can have it revealed to you by one of two ways:

Make a purchase of any amount at http://www.everythingyaoi.com from now until January 15th.

~OR~

Show Maria from Everythingyaoi.com that you deserve your free smutty image! We know you're a devoted yaoi fan, and a supporter of Yaoi Press. We'll reward you for that. Show Maria how you've helped us get the word out about Yaoi Prose.

Did you comment on a blog about us and give the link to this site? Were you able to put our banner up on your site or give us a text link? Did you give Yaoi Prose a blurb in a report you posted? Did you tweet about us with a link? Did you mention us on Facebook? (Will you?)

We need promotion. It's easy right now. Were giving free yaoi erotic here. People will want to know about that. Help us get this info to them.

Then Email maria at everythingyaoi dot com with evidence of your pro Yaoi Prose activities to get your free erotic image.

Part 2 of Incubus Master shall launch on January 12th! We're looking into the best ways to offer delivery of our ebooks. We know PDFs are the standard, but do you have other formats you want or need? Please comment.