READ THE WHOLE POST BEFORE DOING THE POLL! YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED!!!


I've been thinking for a little while now about how the Publishing Companies and the manga reading community could get along better. Not sure how well this idea will be received, but I thought I would throw it out there for now. Maybe some of you can see this and actually think of ways to make it work better:

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Title: Pay-per-Month Online Reader

Premise: Publishing Companies [both English and Japanese] allow their series to be hosted on the site. Readers are allowed to browse the many different series and then pay a fee per month to read series as they are posted or, in the case of a completed/fully posted series, all of a particular series. Depending on the amount paid per month you can read anywhere from 1 to 20 series at a time, freely dropping and starting series as you see fit. The series will be available for both download and print for a price much reduced from normal prices now. Printing of volumes will be "as needed", in that they will only be printed for an individual and only after they have purchased it. You will also be able to download the series/volumes for a price slightly lower than the printing price. Of course you will be able to read all the manga you wont as long you pay the monthly fee set for the number of manga series you decide you want to read. Without a doubt there will be a bookmark feature so you don't lose your place in your favorite manga series as well as other features borrowed from the popular manga readers on the net right now[OM, MF, MT, etc.].

Also there would be periodic polls and questionnaires from the publishers on anything from possible new licenses in English to how can they improve themselves. There will also be a statistics about all the series hosted that will be able to tell the Publishers what is popular and what is failing. Graphs and charts will be available for everyone to see how their favorite manga series stacks up compared to the rest of them.

As an add-on... Any series dropped midway through by a publishing company translating it will allow it to be scanlated[or legally translated by the staff of the Online Reader] for free so the fans of that series can at least finish the series.

Pricing:
1 manga series = $5.00/month
5 manga series = $10.00/month
10 manga series = $15.00/month
20 manga series = $20.00/month

Printing = $4.00/volume
Download = $2.00/volume
Bulk Printing[buying all volumes available for a series at once] = $4.00/per volume w/10% discount for bulk purchase
Bulk Download[buying all volumes available for a series at once] = $2.00/per volume w/5% discount for bulk purchase

Advantages:
You can pay per month to read LEGAL manga.
You can freely try any manga in the list at any time, there is no charge to switch between manga.
Being able to buy series in bulk without having to hunt down and buy every volume individually.
Being able to download instead of print.
Being able to have a say in some of the licensing.

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Maybe this all wishful thinking... Actually it is all wishful thinking, but I thought it would cool to something like this. This is of course a rough draft, but I thought the option to pay per month as opposed to per series and allowing the reader to change series without charge would be the clincher. Since most people want to read many series, but don't really want to be stuck reading a series they don't like.

Last edited by firestalker at 10:58 am, Jul 19 2010

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I like the whole idea and have imagined something of the sorts myself though i saw more on a pay per series thing with a chapter or 3 for preview and the ability to order in printed form (maybe with a discount?)

Also i imagined something like a reader with a specific filetype to avoid rehosting of downloaded manga (much like steam for manga)

Appart from that i couldn't agree more with the idea

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I seriously like it. Under one condition - there'd have to be only one reader for them all. As in, all companies, at least for the English publishers, offering their manga through the same reader. I imagine it'd be rather hard to do, though.

One more thing I'd say need adjusting is the 1 manga series price as it's too high. Rather, I think it works better if you pay per chapters. One company had a reader like that and I think it worked best. Rather than paying monthly I'd much prefer a fixed price per chapter. That way you decide which chapter of a series you're interested in and you can drop it and move to another manga if it turns out to not be what you were looking for.

There would definitely be only one reader for all of them. I originally envisioned this as being a company by company thing, but decided on the "One Reader to Rule Them All" idea after I realized it would get really expensive and hectic to try and read multiple series since the majority of series I would read are spread across three or four companies.

I thought that as well [the per chapter thing], but I think the per month would be better. The per chapter thing would be a good idea if you only had a few chapters online in order to get people interested in buying the series. The per month idea would allow you the freedom to pick and choose series at will and read them all the way through.

Let's see if I can explain this a little better, using the one manga model:

I pay $5.00 a month to read Naruto. As the chapters come out once a week I can change to another manga free of charge and read those chapters I like. I then change back to Naruto when the chapter is out again.

I would not have that option if I was to pay per chapter and there is also the chance that paying for the chapters could add up to being more in the long run than actually buying the volume out right.

Pricing is negotiable really, just some numbers I threw out there. Feel free to throw your numbers out there as well.

I wonder if the "Hell No" people actually read the post or just took the poll? If they read the post, maybe they just want their cake and eat it too.

Last edited by firestalker at 11:13 am, Jul 19 2010

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Would not work.
The Publishing Companies will say too much work and not enough money back.
The reading community would say too much money for low content.

Hmmm, put that way you may be right. I guess either way would work if thought through properly.

Anyway, the idea itself is great, but the real problem is getting different companies to offer their products through a single reader. You simply NEED to have a certain amount of series to offer for it to make any sense. That, and the pricing has to be reasonable.

No, I rather take everything without a permission
and punch obstacles in throat.

what if there's non-liscensed manga scanlated but not in us? will u still have to pay?

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Let's just say Tarot Cards rule.

Scanlation wouldn't hosted on the site, unless it's the aforementioned finishing of a series.

I envisioned a way to suggest series to publishers in order to get them translated legally, but of course scanlation will be around to fill the gaps as needed.

There might also be a way to at least get the licenses of certain series in order to allow scanlation groups to host their works. Scanlation should really only be used for "filling gaps" between Manga that isn't licensed in English. If there was a way to get the license for those series and legal get paid to scanlate those series would the scanlators approve of that?

I'm not talking about what Tazmo or Narutofan does, but a legal way to do it. Would that owrk for the scanlators?

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Probably, unless the legal way is something really annoying and can't be freely done.

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Let's just say Tarot Cards rule.

I won't pretend to know how the licensing of material works so I can't really answer this. But I was thinking if something like the Online Reader was to purchase the rights to a series and then get people of the community to scanlate/translate it then that would work right?

Or something like that. Any ideas on this?

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How about oneshots ?_?

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can be hosted as advertisement for a particular series or magaka. Free... After naegotiation of course.

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I think you had a good idea but it's not a very practical one, i'll name a few reasons.
You're assuming that every manga reader will have means to pay for the service. I'll say two reasons in one: i'm not from the U.S. and i don't have Visa or Mastercard, how will i be able to pay? Sure there is Paypal, but you end up putting a severe restraint on the readers: one they'll have to establish a Paypal account, now i don't know exactly how it works since i've never used it but aren't you required to have an actual bank account? Plus how would that work for minors that want to read manga? I'm 23 so paying and having an account is no problem for me, but we're talking about manga, something that is read mostly by underage people, can they still sign in to that service? If they can't that system would shut down thousands of people.
Another thing that has already been mentioned: the chapters and volumes and oneshots situation: there are some sites that allow games to be downloaded in this kind of system, but games and manga are completely different things: would the values be the same? Because shoujo typically has much more pages than shounen or seinen, that would put those at a disadvantage in terms of content. It would lead to a very messy situation i believe.
I hope i made some sense.

I'm all for it-except im not old enough to own a credit card, and therefore am not able to actually pay for it. and a lot of the manga community is under 18, so if that could be worked around then its good.
maybe there could be an option of 25-35 dollars for unlimited reading? or maybe you could do it by pages you read. like a few cents per page?

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[img][/img] A senpai tried to violate me after hearing about my transfer. BUT I RAPED HIM INSTEAD.