Here's an article about it from Publisher's Weekly. Yikes, everybody...so you haven't been buying the books...hmmm...Actually, I know this very well, since NONE of you have bought a book from Amazon through the links I provide and less than .1% of you even click on the links. All of you understand that "free" is not a business model.
Well, I certainly don't do scanlation to hurt the publishers or the artists and I'm sad to see that consumers will not pay for their favorite manga titles when they do become available for purchase. At the same time, manga at ~$10/volume, in the US, costs way too much for the target audience. Also, there's the problems of most US publishers being several years behind the Japanese release for manga series and don't let me get started about the space and tree destroying issues associated with multiple volumes of a series. Sigh...it's all messed up and it will get even more messed up as lawyers are brought on board. I really wish there way for us to all get along.
Anyhow...so the important thing to come up with is what to do about what's going on. I want to continue to introduce manga series that are not available in the US in hopes that they do become licensed so the artists can make some money for their labor. I, too, would like to make money for my labor translating it. On the licensed manga front, I have removed Arakure ("Wild Ones") from my blog, however, I cannot control distribution on the manga aggregation sites. I will, though, take the step to no longer upload any of my translations of US licensed manga to any manga agreggation sites. I also will start removing my translations of "Ouran High School Host" from my blog. To the extent that I feel comfortable, I will continue to translate "Ouran," until the series ends. But I may consider a time limit for the postings. What can you all do? You can buy at least one volume of your favorite manga series, also, on the publisher's website, make your desire for electronic manga known. Let the publishers know how much you are willing to pay for it. Set their marketing experts' and business people's expectations correctly. I will say, sooner or later, we all will have to pay. And if we don't pay with money, then we will pay with personal information or we will pay by having to waste our time looking at advertisements.
What do you think?
