A year and a half ago a Japanese shounen-ai game was offered to Yaoi Press for licensing in the US. This was a beautifully illustrated game with kemonomimi characters (not Lamento). Despite the quality of the art, we never got to the synopsis translation phase. We didn't consider the license because I knew how horribly online piracy had hurt the sales of other computer game importers. Online piracy is the *only* reason we did not look further into the game.

Two companies have imported games with BL themes into the US. One closed down. The other hasn't released a new BL game since 2006.

As of today I've removed the games category on our store site. Sales no longer justify the minimum orders we would have to place with the manufacturer to keep the games in stock. I know the remaining company I buy from is still selling copies of it's first print run of the game. This is typically only 5,000 copies.

At every convention I attend I hear one or two customers point to one of the games and say, 'Oh, I downloaded this one.' I don't have an emotional response to this sort of thing anymore since it's so common. There was a time in the 1990s when I didn't know better either (bought a fansub on VHS). However, I did get angry when one of my own employees gave out the link to a piracy site.

I really thought that BL games were going to be the next big thing. I wanted to see the library of imports grow as big as the BL DVD library has. Both categories have stunted growth due piracy. For the fledgling game category I wonder if it hasn't been killed outright. How can I blame other publishers for turning down imports when I did the same? I could be offered Lamento, a BL game hot enough in the USA to have the figures rapidly sell out at every convention, but I would have to say no. I know I wouldn't make back the licensing, translation, distribution, and production costs when I may lose around 50% of sales to thieves.

One go-around to the piracy problem would be a BL Massively Multiplayer Online Game. That's something I'd love to see. Perhaps it's something we could investigate.

Please support this brand new anime show in Albuquerque New Mexico. I'm very honored to be one of their guests. I will be providing lots of Yaoi programming and freebies.



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Labels: Conventions

I love doing this show. The fans here are so nice. The panel on Friday was a riot. Three hundred people showed up, so I pulled out all the stops. I hope some of the zanier moments makes it to Youtube.

Otakon should make its motto: 'The Yaoi Con of the East.'

Yaoi Press will be unveiling a new product that will appeal to Yuri fans at Otakon. We are at booths 217-219.

I would like to be less cryptic about this, however I need to have a photo of the item in order to do a proper press release. The items are being delivered directly to our Virginia staff right before the show. I won't have the chance to get a photo until after Otakon.

On Rocket Bomber there's a weekly list ranking sales for the top 500 manga. I trust this ranking to be accurate despite knowing nothing about the author because: A. verifying the accuracy is impossible due to my limited time, and B. assuming that it's accurate grants me a free database of useful information.

Yaoi Press usually has at least one title in the top 500. This week Yaoi Hentai Vol. 2 is #380, down from 349 last week.

I didn't understand why a title published over two years ago had consistently higher online sales than all our newer titles. It's true that the words 'Yaoi' and more importantly 'Hentai' are in the title, thereby making the series pop up on numerous searches, however, why doesn't this drive sales of Yaoi Hentai 3, or 1, or 4?

I've traced the answer to Google Book Search. If you search for the word 'hentai,' Yaoi Hentai 2 is the first title that comes up. I had an old assistant of mine get Yaoi Press in this program around the end of 2006. All our titles printed prior to November 2006 are in the program. I looked at this week's report from Google:

Top Books (2008-07-13 ~ 2008-07-19)

Top 5 Books by Book View Book Visits

Winter Demon Volume 1 24
Yaoi Hentai Volume 2 225
Stallion 17
Saihoshi The Guardian 11
Desire of the Gods 7

When you view a Yaoi Press title through their system you're given three links to buy the book. The first is Yaoi Press, then Amazon.com, then Barnes&Noble.com.

I've had the rest of our titles sent to Google for inclusion. It's nice to see a program that was free to participate in driving online sales. It's also nice to see that having the word 'hentai' in a book title is finally paying the search engine dividends I had hoped for when the series was first named. Perhaps instead of 'Happy Yaoi Yum Yum,' our new hentai series should have been called 'iPhone TMZ Viagra.'

Labels: hentai, marketing, publishing

Youka Nitta traced photographs from magazines to incorporate in her manga works. This crime caused a disaster for her publisher. They presumably had to pull her works from stores, said works being phone-book manga filled with the manga of other creators, and scramble to replace her slot in future anthologies. They were left open to severe legal action from the plagiarized magazines.

There is no doubt that Nitta-sensei deserves some of the heartache she's now going through. This was a costly crime that warrants more than a slap on the wrist.

By no stretch of the imagination does Nitta-sensei deserve to have her career ended over this incident.

First, from a strict monetary point of view, a talent like her has made more money for her publisher than this incident has or will cost them, and her future works would continue to make money for them regardless of this incident.

Second, no matter how much American and Japanese fans love a juicy controversy, no matter their passion in witnessing her shame, they will continue to buy her works. Nitta-sensei is one of the best BL mangaka working today. Her art work is phenomenal. Her storytelling breaks the mold of so many cookie-cutter BL manga being translated from Japan. She didn't say she was bigger than Jesus. No fan is making a bonfire out of her books.

I don't know if it was her publisher who pushed her into ending her career, or if she performed career seppuku out of her own sense of guilt, but it shouldn't matter. Fans should endeavor to make her feel just as guilty for abandoning them. The response I'm seeing more than any other is disappointment over the fact we won't see anymore Embracing Love. The series was available for relicense as of a certain date, and may have already been licensed by the same company who licensed Finder Series. We were going to have our crown jewels of yaoi readily available once again. We've been robbed not due to Nitta-sensei's crime, but her drastic decision following it.

An apology was warranted. A temporary withdrawal from the business was warranted. Permanently ending the career of such a shining star is far too great a punishment. From this publisher's perspective Nitta-sensei should have withdrawn for a certain period of time, then returned with a new project preambled with her continued apology over her past crime, and a desire to make a fresh start. Her current publisher should give her a second chance, if they haven't already offered her one. She can make financial amends to them by virtue of her talent.

I may be naive with regards to Japanese culture. What I'm suggesting may be impossible. I hope this isn't the case. However, I know such a talented woman with such a large following can always find a publisher for her work.

Here are some recent reviews of Yaoi Press Books:

http://www.kuri-ousity.com/?p=415

http://www.kuri-ousity.com/?p=424



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