I was wondering what would be the best way to support a mangaka when it comes to buying the physical books themselves. I read manga scanlations, and I do want to support the mangaka. But here's what I want to know:

Would it be better to buy the North American releases or buy from websites like YesAsia that import?

Basically, when I look at the price of manga here in the U.S., I wonder how much of it actually goes to the mangaka and the people who worked on it (mangaka, editors...etc.) as if buying it in Japan. (My dad cringes at the idea of buying a book for $10 that I can finish reading in a few minutes.) When I did a search for NG Life v.01, for example, Barnes&Noble's price is $9.75 (membership) and $10.99 (retail), Amazon's price is $9.34, and YesAsia's price is $7.49. If YesAsia's price gives more towards the mangaka, wouldn't it be better to pay a few more dollars if it meant the mangaka got more money out of it than from the N.A. releases?

I can't read Japanese, but I'd still have already read them, and learning Japanese is something I'm planning to do. I've also heard about some "censoring" in the N.A. releases, though I'm not sure what that is about.

Thoughts?

It's difficult. The thing is with North American releases that a great deal of the money goes to the staff and the NA company itself. I assume that very little goes to the mangaka. Considering also that the average manga costs anywhere from 7 - 12 USD, there's not much to go around.

Imports do help the mangaka more but shipping would be spendy. I personally have never ordered manga from Yes Asia but have imported manga from other sites which cost more than twice the amount of the book itself, even on SAL.

Money wise, it is best to stick with the NA release. But if you want to help the mangaka more and are willing to pay for higher shipping to do so, go with imports.

Manga aside, there are a few other things you can do to support the mangaka. Such as buying their artbooks, figurines, plushies, and other imported merchandise.Shipping is not so bad when it comes to these things either. EMS shipping from Hobby Search can be anywhere from 20 - 30 USD for figures.

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If you don't mind slower shipping, BK1 is a lot cheaper than YesAsia.

See my post here.

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Writers and mangka get a percentage of the gross sales of the books. It doesn't matter which you buy. They get a percentage of NA releases and Japanese releases. Often times they get an advance flat payment as well. There are industry standards for the percentages given. The more a book sells, the more the writer makes. As a professional writer myself, that's why I like percentages. If I was paid just a flat fee for my work with no percentage, I'd be really upset if my book sold a lot. I'd lose money. I have actually gotten slightly higher percentages for foreign rights than domestic rights. This is mainly because of the negotiating skills of my domestic publisher's staff. The best way you can support a mangka or any author is to buy their work. Believe me, we are so thankful when people buy our work. Writers of any kind would be nowhere without the readers.

Last edited by blackknight at 2:38 pm, Mar 16 2011

just buy the cheaper ones. i always buy the good manga at the bookstores, but they are cheaper than the american ones. as lonjg as you buy them they are supported enough i think. and don´t buy everything you read, but only those you know that you´ll reread them.

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One of the ideas that came to me involves the system of how some of us read manga today (through the internet.) Let's face it, free is always going to be best. So why can't a mangaka use this system to his or her profit?

For example, a number of websites are hosting illegal manga. How do most of these websites make money? Advertising. If there was a system where the mangaka could host his or her works online and make revenue through advertising/number of page hits, they could make some serious money. This would drive the mangaka to develop the best series they can in order to keep readers coming back to the website. Plus, he can also set up his series for multiple languages, not just english. As a added bonus, they could literally recruit scanlators for their translation team. You could think of it as "Improve your Japanese to [insert language]" by translating their works.

So now the mangaka is getting paid by hosting their works on the internet, not like the illegal system we have now.

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@ Jakeorion - I could see this working, and not just for manga.

I agree with RocketDive on the merch thing. I definitely have plans to buy some. I think I had bought some stickers and artbooks that were imported since they weren't in English. They didn't cost a lot, but I still can't remember where I bought them from! I'm still looking!

As for blackknight, if they all work on percentages, then I wouldn't mind just buying the English ones. Though this gives me another question: Does the percentage change for anything sold out of the original country? Even that can change my mind, but if it's all the same then the English ones should be no problem.

ShadowSakura, if I bought all the manga I have ever read... I'd probably be in hardcore debt. I will keep in mind to buy only the ones I liked. I did that for a while before I got too busy to go to the bookstore. I ordered online for a while, too, but time just keeps flying away. I do hope to start doing that again soon, though!

JakeOrion, I'm aware that OpenManga was in development for a time to bring legal translated manga to the fans for little to no cost while the mangaka still got paid for it. There hasn't been an update since August, so I don't know if it's still in development or not. The official blog is in Japanese, so if there was an update there I wouldn't be able to tell. While this does bring up a good point, it doesn't really answer my question. :\

Last edited by Rubix-ruby at 7:10 pm, Apr 6 2011

@ rubix - There are industry standard percentages based on genre, type of publication, etc. Many times, foreign rights bring in a higher percentage. This is because of negotiations with multiple publishing partners - resulting in the contract going to the highest bidder. It the case of manga published in English, those would be foreign rights. As an author of nonfiction books, whenever my work gets published outside of the U.S. I get a higher percentage.

Best way to support mangaka is to buy their manga. I buy manga at halfprice book store
because its expensive when you buy it at the other book store.

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@blackknight - Alright, so if that's the same then it'd be better to buy the English releases, yes? As for the non-translated manga, I'll just import them if they aren't translated anytime soon. Thanks so much for the information! It'll really help me, I really didn't think it was like that. Now I have something to keep in mind for the future.

@darkKurei - That was the point of this topic, to find out if it would be better to support the mangaka by buying the English released manga or importing them straight from Japan. I'm all up for buying cheap priced books (I LOVE BN's bargain books!), but I was hoping to not be cheap on this and actually pay for whichever offered the mangaka more money (American or Japan releases).

Yeahhh..I think it doesn't matter whether if you buy the japanese version or english version. It's still supporting them. right xD

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Actually Rubix, I believe you thought of it as still going through a Publisher. All the mangaka has to do is hire an editor (optional but wise) and then publish his works online. Companies like Shueisha, Shogakukan, etc. would not be involved since the mangaka is hosting his pages online as soon as the drawing is finished. Publishers could then ask for the rights to print their works via paper (depending on how popular the series is), hence earning the mangaka even more money.

By doing this, your giving the mangaka the power to control his works, not the corporation like it is established now.

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