Digital Manga Inc.
More on the Digital Manga print hiatus
Earlier this week Digital Manga announced it will put its print manga on hiatus for the first six months of 2013. At the same time, the publisher is beefing up its eManga digital manga site, and one of the big changes is that comics purchased on the site will now be downloadable; previously Digital Manga offered streaming only. Of course, the company also offers a wide array of downloadable manga via its iOS apps, iBooks, Kindle and Nook. If it’s a digital platform, Digital is probably on it.
There are a few other changes, including a rewards program on eManga that gives the purchaser back 5 percent of the price paid in points, which can be applied toward future purchases or gifted to others. The revamped eManga site will be operational sometime before Nov. 30, according to Yoko Tanigaki, Digital’s vice president for sales and distribution.
Still, the announcement of the delay in print publication gave us pause, and we had a few questions, which Tanigaki was kind enough to answer for us.
Digital Manga to go all-digital for six months
Despite its name, Digital Manga Inc. has always had a robust print line; in fact, the publisher was releasing print manga long before it moved into digital. And it has a pretty solid niche, too: Most of what the company publishes is yaoi manga, fairly formulaic romance between two men, and it has a small but faithful following.
So it was a surprise when Digital President Hikaru Sasahara announced Wednesday that the company will suspend publication of print manga from January through June 2013. “This hiatus will allow us to coordinate our production schedule for 2013 and temporarily shift our focus to our digital publications,” he said on the Digital blog. The post includes a list of all the books scheduled for publication in the first six months of 2013, along with their new release dates. A few books will remain on their original schedule, including the next volume of Vampire Hunter D and the two Tezuka manga funded by a recent Kickstarter campaign.
Comics A.M. | Rise of graphic novels at Miami Book Fair International
Miami Book Fair International
Events | Richard Pachter surveys the graphic novel scene at Miami Book Fair International, which this year will include appearances by Chris Ware, Derf Backderf, Marjorie Liu, Dan Parent and Chip Kidd, among others. [The Miami Herald]
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