Theres a store near my work that sells a really great deal on their manga. 5 manga for 15 dollars and I thought to myself how can they afford to offer it at this price when the sticker price is normally 15-20 dollars for each volume... So I asked the clerk and he said that they get the manga for 25 cents an issue? Is that actually what retailers pay? is he getting manga off the back of a truck?

If this is the actual price then why the hell aren't the japanese taking a better profit share.... I mean holy shit. No wonder only a few titles out of the thousands of manga available make it to america.... That's just nonsense. At that price am I even supporting the mangaka anymore by buying legitimate copies?

I think it's fairly obvious that publishers aren't initially offering manga at $.25 per volume to retailers; the marginal cost per copy couldn't reach that level even if there were ubiquitous demand, let alone in the minimal market that currently exists. There's not enough information in your post to be certain (especially given that you don't mention any titles), but I'd hazard a couple of possibilities, aside from the possibility that the shop is shady:

Either the manga you saw offered for sale was purchased used and is being resold, or the English publisher overestimated the market for the volumes when determining their print run, and dumped their remaining stock at clearance rates.

In either case, companies publishing manga in English generally have to pay up front for the rights to the full series, so the Japanese publisher is essentially paid for the volumes as if they sold for the listed price, even if the series winds up doing poorly. (Ed Chavez from Vertical mentions this at about the 41 minute mark here.) Of course, when manga sales are poor, publishers have less incentive to license other series by that author, thereby hurting the mangaka down the road.

Manga in my country costs about USD1.50 per issue. And I'm talking about the full proper short thick volume things. And translated to our local language. I don't know what the cost price is to the local publishers.

Did you CHECK what the selection of manga on sale was? And the quality? Like were they torn, dog-earred, missing the front cover, eaten by bookworms...
For instance, I once went to a rummage sale and picked up some REALLY cheap manga there too... I also have attended bookshop closing down sales and gotten cheap stuff as well.

Also, the clerk is sometimes just parttime help for these places, he doesn't always know what he's talking about. He might be very mistaken about 25c per manga, it might be USD2 each and the store sells it for $3 each when you buy in bulk.

BTW, manga is VERY overpriced in your country, USD15-20 per issue is ridiculous, it's especially hilarious when Viz exports some of it to my country and if I'm not mistaken Viz actually charges us LESS than they do you US citizens, it's under USD10 for a copy of Naruto! From MPH or Kunnikuhiya or other large bookshops! But Viz has no choice cause they're competing with our localized Naruto under USD1.50 per copy...

haha, jasonred79, are you from malaysia? cos the price of manga in the local language is so ridiculously cheap, around 1-2 pound per volume. since supposedly only children and young teen read them, it is a very good price for that age bracket. well, the paper used is not the best out there, but they are serviceable.

I think it might be that overstock of odd manga that didn't sell bit. Although I did find some really popular ones like Bleach, and Hellsing, but only like 2-3 volumes of each. Overall though the collection seems to be a mishmash or various manga. The store is called the Wee Book Inn located in Edmonton Alberta, Canada.

long ago i bought few volumes of Aria at that price each (less, if memory serve me right)... the bookstore -the publisher's book store- is having a clearance sale. the condition is still good, still in a plastic wrap and all.

but then again the new mangas that they sell in here are around $1.5 to $2.5

i dunno.. maybe the ones they sell on your bookstore are secondhand... or something..