Would it be at all workable to put in links to retailers on the listings for licensed manga?

I'd asked Kodansha's tumblr about promoting on English manga information sites (not mentioning anyone by name). They didn't seem opposed to the idea in general, and actually brought up the fact that sites like Amazon and some of the others do pay money to sites that do things like that.


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This may be a really impractical idea, and I don't know what's involved, but I was thinking that might be a way to give the site some way of defraying your expenses, and also give it a little more security against the more problematic publishers/distributors? Because if you are able to show that people are buying official manga through MU then it would not be in their interests to make things difficult for you. In theory at least.

The existing example that made me wonder if it would be possible is fantasticfiction's system, where the description of their books has links to new and used booksellers? It's likely WAY more complicated than would be needed, but they've gradually added on more and more features to their setup over the years so I figure it must be lucrative for them.

They used to have just a single box at the bottom of the page, but this is is it currently:






Last edited by elliemoran at 11:53 am, Mar 30 2015

In a way, I also suggested this

The books are linked with a ISBN, so it would be easier to find. Like on GoodReads, you have a drop down box of places like Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Nobel, and the other retail places

There are 2 boxes, 1 for the physical and another for the digital, if there is one (it works for the digital because they also share the same ISBN, but still different from the ISBN for the physical edition)

I would simply link to the 1st volume of the series, unless a drop-box can be programmed in so you can pick the volume you want to be linked to

But this will also take a lot of community support to fill in all the blanks