What About The Manga Market?

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I don't have an e-reader for digital books and while the idea is one I have no problem with, I like holding books. News was another thing for me. Once I could read news online for free, there was no reason for me to buy a newspaper and frankly, it was a relief not to own one. Why? Its that much less trash I have to deal with. *lol*

Anyway, I do read some manga stuff in digital form, meaning I download a file and use ACRABee to view the images for reading. That said, I do not like reading in this fashion. I tolerate it because I can get the latest Negima! chapter, then I buy both the tankoubon from Japan and Del Rey's latest release when they come out (yeah, that's how much of a nutter I am for Negima!). I enjoy reading books in bed before going to sleep at night. Maybe I'd feel something similar with an e-reader but I'm not sure.

I do think that some form of manga reader in legal form would be cool. That way people could legally read manga online if they wanted.
 
Re - The Security of HardCopy:
If the content isn't DRM'd heavily (or at the very least in such a punitive fashion that back ups loaded on a replacement authorized device won't work,) you can back it up and it more secure and less prone to risk than your hardcopies. After all, a huge hardcopy manga collection gets burned down in a fire, destroyed in a flood, etc. A a huge digital manga collection can be kept on an 8GB microsdhc card kept in your wallet/purse/cellphone/what have you. Your library is on your person, and you can have it backed up as many other places as you want to keep track of, assuming of course non-punitive DRM or no DRM. Considering the music industry has effectively given up on DRM, the publishing industry would be wise to skip the punitive DRM attempts and just go straight for open formats. Yeah, some tool bag may re-upload it or give a copy to a friend. They will find away to do that no matter what you do, so don't punish honest folks. Take a cue from iTunes and Amazon Music and go DRM-free whenever possible.

And yeah, the readers need to get cheaper. However, they will, and they'll get better, more paper-like, displays in the process. Seriously, give it another half decade and you'll have 100 dollar readers that may even double as fairly zippy computers. Might even have color displays for only a bit more. They'll also probably a good 16-32GB of internal storage with expansion options in the 64-128GB range. That is a huge library.

As it stanRAB, the Kindle is 350 and books run about 6 bucks on it. Lets assume manga takes the volume route with a 5 dollar price point. If you're buying about 30 manga a year, it'll take you just over two years to come out ahead of where you'd be with buying hard copies (70 copies would be your wash point assuming an average 10 dollar price point for hardcopy manga.) Of course, you also get a device with free unlimited internet access anywhere in the US. Kind of a significant bonus.

Oh, the TPM stuff has only turned up on workstation motherboarRAB that need real-time harddrive encryption. HDMI's been more actively consumer punitive, and most content providers don't turn on the content downgrade flags, even after begging to have that option.
 
DRM is the big thing here. I'm completely ignorant on the e-reader thing but assuming it can interface with one's PC, then when my PC is backed up remotely, then all my files would be saved oRABite. E-books and e-manga would need to be DRM free though in order to make everything cool.
 
It wouldn't have to be DRM-free - you could have steam-style environment where the content is tied to an account, so you can back up information however you want, but accessing the content requires your reader be registered to your account. You have your back ups, but your back ups need your password, just like iTunes or Steam.
 
You mean drag your feet on the DRM issue for as long as humanly possible before finally caving to insane amounts of consumer pressure only when faced with several more progressive and forward-thinking competitors? And then charge your customers extra for the privilege of NOT having artificial restrictions placed on what they may do with what is ostensibly their property? And then try to force those who were silly enough to buy your DRM-ed wares back when that was all you offered pay full price for them again if they want the DRM-free versions? No thanks.



Now, THIS make sense. (-:
 
It's too bad that manga is in a bad state right now. Escpecially since I wish to break into the graphic novel business with a manga style. Although, I think American stuff is doing better than manga. In any case, I'm sending my stuff to Dark Horse.
 
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