[...] marginal titles. Digital is a small company and they have tried a few things in the past, such as asking fans to pre-order a book to speed up its release. Regardless of the merits of his latest idea (and it's a mixed bag, [...]

[...] Vice, Gia talks to Digital’s Michelle Mauk about their pre-order plan. Johanna Draper Carlson weighs in as well at Comics Worth Reading, and Alex Hoffman gives his take at Manga [...]

[...] could happen as much as a quarter (4 months) ealier than expected.  Johanna at Comics Worth Reading wondered if Paypal is going to be a dealbreaker for the publisher’s book printing, but I have a few thoughts to the [...]

http://tinyurl.com/lwe555

I don’t think Digital Manga is going anywhere because this is the second move on DMP’s part [breaking exclusivity with Diamond most recent] that shows Digital Manga trying to scale back sensibly when it comes to ‘editions’ that aren’t their biggest sellers. This looks to me like they’re trying to avoid doing away with BL Novels by allowing fans of those BL novels [they are just a small part of the overall BL fandom here] to determine what they want to read and what June should release. A Pre-order program is the best way to do this, because polls are no way to determine how much money you should spend on a print run, and what you should license.

:)

I’m just wondering what happens to those payments if for any reason Digital Manga goes out of business? 4-7 months is an awfully long time in an economic period where the manga industry in general is not doing well.

“You must ship the item within 7 days of receipt of payment. Or, if the payment is for pre-ordered or made-to-order goods, shipment is required within the timeframe specified in your item listing.”

:)

I read their post carefully – it’s worded carefully. I suspect that when you pay for this using paypal, you’re paying for membership in ‘the program’.

It’s likely each title up for order will be listed as a ‘[title]program’ and that you’re paypal purchase will be processed as a ‘membership’ [or something like this]; because they say once the ‘membership goal’ [amount needed] is reached, then the title goes to print and members will be rewarded for your membership with ‘THIS TITLE’, early.

I’m not an employee of DMP, so I can’t speak for them – but I know my way around ‘ze paypal’. :)

Asking for ‘production cost help’ has been a staple of fan-book makers for years [if you want your Naruto fanbook - please pre-pay or they don't get printed]; it’s easy to be upfront with fellow fans about the accounting of it all, because that’s what doujinshika are–fellow fans with the talent to make comics. It’s not considered unpro behavior because you’re a fan making fan-books for other fans. How BL fen will take a ‘pro publisher’ doing this, will be interesting to see.

Now the only problem I see is Paypal.

While it is one of the most common ways fen get their doujinshi and manga from Ebay, from a creators perspective – they have this very strange ‘no selling of adult material’ clause, in which they can effectively shut down an account even if there are funds in it, without offering a refund to the account holder–for violation of this rule. This rule and how they enforce it has always been around–making paypal a minefield for doujinshi makers. I know we [and other doujinski makers] were always aware of it, but we got around it–and one way to do that was by not announcing ‘hey buy our yaoi books using paypal’. :/ Many creators sold exclusively on eBay in order to get around paypal’s TOS rule because technically you’re charging for an ‘auction sale’; but eBay changed their ‘buy now’ listing rules [limiting them severely unless you purchase a storefront account] which affected how doujinshika could list their books.

I suspect that DMP/JUNE is just selling ‘pre-orders’ via paypal, and not the actual books? You’re buying a ‘pre-order slot’ through paypal – not the actual yaoi manga–which would violate Paypal’s TOS? :)

This isn’t a new concept at all to Yaoi fans. :) I must admit, seeing it coming from a publisher is a bit strange – but times are tight? They know the fandom is familiar with this sort of sales-method, and so they’re not hoisting something alien on to them.

^_^v