I've begun talking to some authors (seriously). And I'm considering opening a legal manga site and I'm sure it will be a lot different from whatever openmanga may be planning. It's in it's beginning stage and there's nothing I can show you. However, I am curious to see the demographics of people's willingness. And it may also help convince mangakas to consider a different business models.

The business model itself is right now a secret. But I can say is that it is rather an interesting one. Unlike normal publishing of mangas, the biggest profiteer of the revenue will be the author. Not the publisher. Therefore, you really are supporting the author as much as possible.

There will be no physical book (at this time), only online viewing and you can view as many times as you want.

Please don't ask how much you have to pay and how to pay. Just vote to the best of your abilities. And "reasonable" is what ever you define to be "reasonable" as it is a test for mentality, not a dollar value.

Thanks,
Grumpy

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Edit for questions that will likely be raised again:

Raws will not be hosted as it means I'm competing against the original. That is not what it's for. It's to reach out to those who cannot read the original and thus becomes an addition, not a replacement.

The business model is a secret b/c it will affect people's answers. And I want an untainted data. It will be made public later. But transparency will be one of highest priority as it will be key in negotiating with the authors and readers. So, I plan to make it as transparent as possible to the point which the author will allow it (some may prefer privacy).

Last edited by Grumpy at 6:53 am, Sep 11 2010

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The Company
[b]Batoto

This will be a great idea.
PM me with the link to the site when you're done ^_^

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Let's just say Tarot Cards rule.

I would be interested
but
I already pay for my magazine subscriptions and the cost me
an assload.
If there is a way to have raws up there too, it would be a great help.

If it is legal, just as he said, there should be no problem putting up a link in this poll.
(I do think it is a nice idea, just hard to put in action but you said you've thought of something...)
Anyway I'm totally interested - thumbs up

Even though it is such a subjective word...

Yes, I would be willing to pay a 'reasonable' amount. More than willing to, actually.

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if you want to get more views on this topic, too, you could try suggesting it as the weekly manga poll. that way, even people who aren't members of baka-updates can vote.

Are these OEL manga you're talking about or translated Japanese manga or what? If the latter, would these be original works that aren't available as paper books in Japanese? Because I currently buy all my manga raw and prefer it in book form, so what you're offering would have to be both special and exclusive to get any money out of me.

Yes, I would be willing be to pay them if they were to implement artist->consumer digital distribution. It is likely the future of the manga industry (as with music, and to a lesser extent, books/newspapers). If an author puts out a monthly manga, which has say, 100,000 people read it each month, and was to charge them 10 cents each for a download of it directly from him, he would stand to make 10,000 dollars a month, which I would imagine is a massive improvement from what they make under the current publishing system. It would also allow for easy international distribution. The only downside of a system like this is the lack of publicity for new manga, making startup difficult, but there are ways around that.

I would be willing to give money to the mangaka.
However, I would NOT be willing to give money to you. Your 'secret business model' sounds like an obvious scam.

Raws will not be hosted as it means I'm competing against the original. That is not what it's for. It's to reach out to those who cannot read the original and thus becomes an addition, not a replacement.

and @ NeverBreakXPact, it's a secret b/c it will affect people's answers. And I want an untainted data. It will be made public later. But you do bring a good point in transparency as it will be key in negotiating with the authors and convincing the readers. So, I plan to make it as transparent as possible to the point which the author will allow it (some may prefer privacy).

Last edited by Grumpy at 6:05 pm, Sep 10 2010

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The Company
[b]Batoto

I would probably only pay if there was a sort of subscription type of thing. Like, "you pay so-and-so amount to read whatever you want". If i had to pay for every chapter i read like on a shopping cart then i would never visit the site. It just depends how it's operated.

A personal idea of mine is to pay a certain amount to infinitely read all chapters of a specific manga. That's because it's sort of a guessing game. You're betting that when you subscribe to that manga that you will be able to read it for a long time and that it won't end quickly. If you pay to read a manga and it ends within the month you just got screwed. So that justifies a low price. There is a sense of risk for the readers that enables us to pay cheaply. Not very likely to happen but it might

An online viewer? Truthfully, I'm old school, so I love (obsessed) with collecting manga volumes. I love the smell and feel of a book in my hands. It's not that I don't understand where you're coming from, but traditionally, a 'product' is something material, isn't it?

I much prefer reading raws actually (unless it's too technical where I can't understand it). But if you could give me a much cheaper manga volume I'd definitely go for the cheaper one. (Don't publishers love ripping people off?) I'm not very sure I'd be very willing to pay to view stuff online when I can't keep something material in my house. But if it's free it'd be ideal (yeah well, we know the world revolves around money.)

Okay. I have to ask a really dumb question here. Maybe my caffeine deprived brain is just failing to function correctly here, but I seem to notice a pretty glaring hole in your model. If I'm just wrong (it happens occasionally), please just explain why and I'll back off quietly.

What exactly are you planning to do with licensing? You do realize that contracts with the publishers lock up the original author's rights, don't you? If you're not competing with the raws, as you have stated, you'd still have to pay the publishers, rather than the author, for the rights to distribute the work legally (since we're trying to work within the realm of legality), and then, as always, the author would receive their cut after the publishers take their dues. How exactly do you plan to get around this and pay the authors instead? Publishers aren't going to just approve that sort of plan unless it's advantageous for them to do so, and you'd have to pay a high price for that to work out.

Then there's the issues of where the translations come from, etc, but those are outside of my main line of reasoning here so I'll drop those for now.

Furthermore, I'm not all that impressed with the principle of undercutting the publishing industry. Yeah, it's not doing too well at the moment, and yes, there is a sink-or-swim mentality as they struggle to find the correct balance between digital and print material, but those companies offer a lot of valuable services for the creators- editors, advertising, etc. etc. Supporting the author is great and all, but they don't do all of the work necessary to make something a success, so I'm not totally sure if I would support your initiative. It would all depend on the details, so I can't answer the poll at the moment.

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Reviews of my Work:
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Your awesome!!! - Cherelle_Ashley
NightSwan also said that she wanted to peg me, once, but I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or a threat...

Since we're talking about digital publishing, if you can get the original Japanese manga to be published on kindle/kindle-readable-ebook for the same price as the paper volume in Japan or at most $1 higher, then I'd definitely buy (if it was on my reading/wish/complete list).

Otherwise, I don't know. I'd have to see the entire model before deciding.

I wouldn't be willing to pay to read online. End of story.

If it was something I could download - so I can keep it, read it later even if the site croaks, etc. then I'd be willing to pay a "reasonable" amount *IF* the site had the manga I enjoy reading.

I still have a strong preference for buying actual tangible paper books, though, so it would have to be pretty inexpensive.

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"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992