• This is part of an on-going blog series called “Being a Professional Manga Artist in the West“. The first post is here.
• You can buy my “Queenie Chan: Short Stories 2000-2010” collection as a $4.99 ebook. Get it from Smashwords, Amazon, Apple iBooks, Nook.

 

I’m putting this post up because last week I had a mild discussion with someone about the assertion that ‘OEL Manga does not sell‘. This person was replying to a post that someone else made with that statement, referring to a 2013 article called “The Problems of OEL Mangaka” by Nattosoup. To give some history on this post, this post went viral sometime last year (which I missed), and it appeared that this article had been misinterpreted and in some cases misread right from the start.

If you read the article properly, the gist of Nattosoup’s article isn’t really that ‘OEL Manga does not sell’ on principle, but that SHE HAS TROUBLE selling her manga-influenced Western comics to publishers and people at anime conventions. Most of her points are perfectly valid and not limited to manga-style Western comics, yet people still seem to take parts of her article out of context, going around declaring that ‘OEL Manga does not sell‘. So, I decided to write this post to try and give a more DEFINITIVE answer to the ‘OEL MANGA DOESN’T SELL’ statements people keep see floating around the Internet.

 

Does OEL Manga sell?

If your question is ‘Does well-drawn, well-written comics that have a manga-influenced style sell to readers in the West?’, then the answer is YES.

If your question is ‘Does manga-style comics sell to comic book publishers, or book publishers?‘, the answer is IT CAN HAPPEN, BUT NOT OFTEN.

If your question is ‘Does manga-style comics by westerners sell, just because they’re manga-style comics by westerners?‘, the answer is I DOUBT IT.

 

Does OEL Manga Sell to Publishers?

When people make statements about “OEL Manga doesn’t sell” on the Internet, 9 times out of 10, they’re referring to something an editor said to them when they pitched their work to a publisher. They’re not referring to readers in general.

Here’s the bad news: publishing isn’t really driven by what an editor likes or finds good, folks. Instead, publishing tends to be driven by things like trends, which genres/categories are ‘hot’, the ‘next big thing’, office politics and the need to MAKE MONEY. The “making money” part is especially important – publishing is a business, and if a publisher doesn’t make enough profit to cover their costs, they’ll be out of business.

Right now, the sales chart says that ‘Manga drawn by Westerners don’t sell well’, so a publisher will be exceptionally foolish to publish an OEL manga when they can publish something that’s from a better selling category. And no, you don’t get to decide what looks ‘manga-influenced’, and what isn’t. The publisher does, because they’re the one who makes that judgement call to publish you or not.

This isn’t a big deal though. Business comes in cycles. As a business, book-selling is subject to the ‘next big thing’ trends, and while this whole aversion to manga-influenced comics is deeply entrenched right now, it won’t always be like this. Trends change all the time.

 

Does Well-Drawn, Well-Written OEL Manga Sell to Readers?

Well-drawn, well-written stories, manga or otherwise, will always sell. They may not sell like gangbusters, they may not sell fast enough to satisfy a publisher’s requirements, but they do sell. The question is, what are your expectations, and how quickly do you expect to achieve them? People believe that the ‘magic powers of marketing’ will somehow turn them into the next JK Rowling, but you know what? JK Rowling only had 1000 copies of the first Harry Potter book printed back in 1997. That’s hardly a vote of confidence from her UK publisher, Bloomsbury – especially when 500 of these were given to libraries right off the bat.

There’s only one reliable way of selling anything, and that’s WORD OF MOUTH. And word of mouth can sometimes take years to generate.

 

Does OEL Manga sell just because it’s OEL Manga?

Of course not. In the nicest possible way, I must tell you that no one actually cares that you draw in a manga-influenced style. At least, not anymore.

I’ve been going to anime and pop culture conventions since 2004, and I can’t say that comics have ever sold particularly well in the Artist’s Alley. Con-goers almost never buy comics of any kind, mostly because they’re there for anime, merchandising and cosplay (or pop-culture, if it’s a general pop-culture convention). They also tend to ask ‘Can I read this online?‘, and if the answer is yes, you’ve got someone who’ll just go online to read your work. The expectation is that comics should be free and online, and piracy hasn’t helped either. (Next time someone asks you ‘is it online’ at a con, try saying ‘half of it is, but the rest you have to buy.’ Then watch them dance around, trying to figure out whether to buy your book or not).

That said, I go to conventions all the time in Australia (I get free tables), but 90% of my readers are American. Go figure. That said, as a group, they are readers, not really manga artists (wannabes or not). If you want to attract a paying audience, you’ll best pitch your work at readers, rather than fellow manga artists.

Manga artists (wannabes or not) spend most of their time drawing manga and trying to get people to look at their work. Some of them make good readers, but most of them don’t – they’re too busy drawing/writing (and trying to get people to look at their work). Readers are people who are interested in good stories, and will buy something if they want to read it and the price isn’t unreasonable. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to tell people about your work as a manga artist, but it does mean that the most important thing you can do is to tell a good story. There’s probably more to post on this subject another time, but for now, I’d leave it.

(Lastly, I’m fairly sure that the people who buy my books aren’t the same people who read these posts. I’ve gotten a bunch of ‘friends+’ on whatever website I’m posting this on, but I’m under the impression that few of these people are my actual readers. Some of my readers, it seems, don’t even bother joining websites. They bookmark and they lurk, and if they buy my work, they’re often do so without talking to me about it. Which is fine. It’s a different crowd. I’m grateful for their support.)

• This post is part of a on-going series called “Being a Professional Manga Artist in the West“. The first post is here.
• Buy my short story collection from Bento Comic’s Smashwords storefront @ US$4.99.

 

Part 6: Taking Time Out to Wait a While

When I finished ‘Small Shen,’ I spent some time off to do some soul-searching.

Having a look at my work over the years, I suddenly realised that I’d spent 5 of those 10 years doing illustration work for other people. The other 5 years was spent pitching to TOKYOPOP and drawing “The Dreaming” – something I enjoyed, but which was done ‘on spec’ (ie. I was asked to write a haunted school story).

That saddened me a little – I learned a lot by illustrating for other people, but it’s not what I got into comics to do. I’m a writer who draws, and I want to write and draw my own stories, not those of other writers, no matter how wonderful they were as people. However, I’d spent a decade of my life doing work for other people, rather than doing my own work. When I realised that, it hit me hard, because a decade is a long time.

From then onwards, I made a decision. From now on, I would only do work I wanted to do. I would only draw and write whatever I wanted, and since the amount of money I made as a pro was never all that much, I wouldn’t care if anyone wanted to buy/read it. I’d do it in my spare time, like most people I knew who did similar stuff, and if I get a publishing deal, then great.

Since then, I have drawn three chapters of a ‘comic-prose’ story, a fairy-tale inspired fantasy story. I had great fun creating it, and for the first time in years, I felt a certain kind of happiness I’ve missed. It was still hard work doing comics-prose, but it’s not as time-consuming as traditional comics. I decided to give that story to my agent to sell, but I promised myself that regardless of whether my story gets picked up by a publisher or not, I’ll continue working on it.

My agent pitched the story to a large publisher I’ve already worked with in August 2013, and got accepted. Unfortunately, even more has changed since the last time I scored a contract, because traditional publishing is now under-going another dreadful change – draconian contracts to fight the dreary economic times.

The editors I pitched to at a major publisher loved my work, but sales and marketing wasn’t sure of the comics-prose format. It was a risky thing to push in this climate, so they could only offer me a contract that wasn’t advantageous to me (from my point of view). I was offered a contract that was actually worse than the first publishing contract I ever signed – at least I got paid an advance for that. When I saw the new contract, it was for no advance, and with a 25% net profit.

My heart sank when I saw what was being offered. I’m quite knowledgeable about the accounting systems of the music and movie industries, and I knew what I was seeing. It has finally happened, folks. Book publishers have finally figured out how to count money like the music and movie industry.

(Conversely, if you have no idea what an ‘advance’ or ‘net’ is, you better read my next section, especially on contracts. A lot of people don’t understand contracts, or even money.)

 

 

For people who are curious, it appeared to have similar terms to one of these contracts, which is being offered by a big publisher. To be honest, most publishers these days have e-book only imprints, and this is one of them: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/03/06/note-to-sff-writers-random-houses-hydra-imprint-has-appallingly-bad-contract-terms/

I did some research, and reading the blogs of prose writers across the net revealed that this practice has been widespread since 2011. I was shocked and horrified – net profits in book contracts have always been notoriously difficult to define, and I have never worked without an advance. I couldn’t believe that this has become the standard for new writers. No one in their right mind would sign such a contract (but believe it or not, lots of people do)!

Anyway, I don’t have anything against traditional publishing houses. These are indeed difficult times for publishing, so I intend to sit back, self-publish for a while and see whether things turn around. The good news about me is that after working 10 years in publishing, is that by now, my expectations are realistic. Unless you win the pop-culture equivalent of the lottery, the truth is that most comic artists have day jobs, the same as most writers of prose fiction.

I’m proud to have worked with all the people I did, and produced the books I have, but having experienced what I have at the beginning of my career, I would never sign a bad contract just to get published again.

(Which is why I wrote this series of posts. It’s intended to be educational, so artists can learn to protect themselves, or at least be less clueless.)

***

This pretty much concludes this part of the posts, so thanks for reading. For the next part, I’ll talk about how the book and comics publishing industries work, what to look for in terms of contracts, agents, editors, copyright, etc.

• This post is part of a on-going series called “Being a Professional Manga Artist in the West“. The first post is here.
• Buy my short story collection from Bento Comic’s Smashwords storefront @ US$4.99.

 

Part 5c: Mixing Prose and Comics

‘Small Shen’ was published in December 2012, and sold pretty well. The most interesting thing about the book was actually where it was stocked in the bookstore. Since it was one of Kylie Chan’s books, it ended up being stocked in the ‘Sci-Fi and Fantasy’ section, which was an astonishing revelation. It was astonishing because the book had managed something that not even highly-lauded and multi-award-winning comics could do – get out of the ‘Graphic Novels and Manga’ section of the bookstore.

 

Dymocks on George St is one of the largest bookstores in Sydney, and they stocked “Small Shen” next to James Patterson and Joe Abercrombie – all prose authors.

 

The ‘ghetto-isation’ of the comics medium in bookstores has been something comic artists have been complaining about since the inception of… comics in bookstores.

It has been a long-time dream for people to get their horror comic stocked in the horror section, where the actual horror fans go. Unfortunately, thanks to the way bookstores stock books, your horror comic will always end up in the comics section, where they sit next to Pokemon and Sailormoon on the shelves.

Even with the popularity of comics, this hasn’t changed. Bookstore employees generally loathe seeing comics wander into the prose section. Unfortunately, it makes selling genre comics to genre fans that much harder, because no romance fan would think to look in the ‘comics’ section for their fix.

Yet, ‘Small Shen’ has managed to circumvent this rule. It seems that if you put a bunch of comics and prose together, people think of it as prose, but with pictures. (I personally think of ‘comics-prose’ as comics, but I know others will disagree.)

The other amazing thing about doing comics-prose, is that no one calls my work ‘manga’ anymore. My work is suddenly ‘illustrated prose’ (to people who don’t read comics) even though my drawing style is exactly the same as it was before, and I still consider it comics/manga.

Those who’ve tried to make a living drawing manga-style comics know how significant this is. Manga tanking as a category in bookstores since 2008 can often mean that publishing houses are prejudiced against anything that looks remotely manga – and this has been one of the challenges I mean to address in this series of posts. Either way, it’s been difficult to escape the long arm of history and the stink of the ‘OEL manga’ tag, but it seems that with comics-prose, I could finally do it.

• This post is part of a on-going series called “Being a Professional Manga Artist in the West“. The first post is here.
• Buy my short story collection from Bento Comic’s Smashwords storefront @ US$4.99.

 

Part 5b: ‘Manga Comes in Book Form?!’

Sometime in 2010, I was asked by my old high school to come and do a workshop teaching their manga fans to draw manga. I was probably the only professional manga artist for miles around, and I do this from time to time, so I said yes. I ended up teaching a dozen or so aspiring manga artists, which was fun. They were bright girls from a prestigious private girl’s school, so they had interesting questions to ask.

It’s normal for someone to ask ‘How do I become a professional manga artist’ in these situations. I have a variety of canned replies to that. However, one of the other industry-related questions they asked threw me.

‘How do publishers make money if they put all their manga online?’

I had a horrible feeling about what they were really asking. They were undoubtedly reading all their manga from pirated sites like MangaFox, and not paying a cent for it.

By 2010, OneManga had been slayed by a coalition of publishers serving a cease-and-desist notice, but more pirate sites were popping up to fill the void. A lot of them seemed to be owned by the same entities, and were user-upload sites, meaning they could circumvent certain legal issues which may bring down similar sites. Either way, if there was a war against manga piracy going on, then that war has already been lost.

I gently let them know that while reading manga online wasn’t evil, you should always buy manga in book form to support the manga artists and their publishers.

Their reaction was one of astonishment.

‘Manga comes in book form?!’

Yes, this crop of 8th graders were amazed that manga originated on printed paper. They didn’t know that manga made of dead trees existed, and that you can buy them… somewhere. This workshop was happening in the middle of the library, and we were surrounded by scores of printed books. Somehow, that made it even more horrible.

Obviously, they then asked where they could buy their favourite series. Living where we were in Sydney, Australia, it was near impossible due to the lack of official translated copies available, so I tried to explain that yes, reading pirated manga online is bad but I understand if it’s the only option…

Wait a minute. So now I was defending the manga pirates? Why in God’s name was I advocating schoolgirls to read pirated online manga? Obviously I was doing it because they had no option but to buy the books, which wasn’t possible, but that wasn’t the real problem.

The real problem was that an entire generation of manga-readers have now grown up believing that manga is free on the internet. Some of them were completely unaware than printed copies of manga exist, and even if they were, they don’t have the resources or an interest in buying them. Even if they did, why buy printed manga, when there are thousands of free manga to read on the internet, accessible only by the click of a button?

I asked them whether manga is really popular at the school. They said yes. According to them, the school gives out laptops to the Year 9 students, who then spend all their lunch breaks in the library, taking advantage of the free wifi to read pirated manga online. I imagine the school finds some way to block porn sites, but they don’t block manga sites, because I suspect the school doesn’t really know or understand anything about it.

So there you have it, folks. No wonder manga readers stay the same age and never seem to grow any older. By the time this lot turns 18, they would have read more manga than some people would have in their entire lifetimes (at some point, I imagine they just burn out and lose interest). They’ve certainly read more manga than I have, and I’ve been reading it for over 30 years, though unlike some of them, I paid to buy my favourite manga.

Anyway, I walked out of that workshop feeling totally dispirited. To be honest, by then, I already wanted to do something different to traditional manga-style comics, but this spurred me on. I didn’t want to stop drawing in manga style, but it was clear that I needed some kind of change. I needed to keep drawing comics, but do it… differently. This meant that I had to change not only how I did comics, but also how it would be marketed.

*****

 

Next Monday, I will talk more about how “Small Shen” did in bookstores, and more about the significance of how it did.