When I heard that Viz will raise its Shonen Jump & Shojo Beat titles to $9.99 per volume, Yashiro & I made the same face (right).
I know manga prices are inching inevitably upwards. Tokyopop, Dark Horse, & Del Rey have all raised prices recently, and even at $9.99, Viz's SJ & SB prices remain below their competitors. Also, like any publisher in this economy, Viz faces significant financial hurdles. If it has to raise prices, so be it (the operative word being "if").
That said, the price increase is badly timed. What's more, Shonen Jump & Shojo Beat releases don't merit $9.99 a volume; better quality Yen Press releases can be had for a $1 more, and with online discounts, I can easily pay the same amount for a new Viz Signature title as I would for a volume of Bleach. Which seems off.
Also (and I'll write more on this in another post), while I doubt the price increase will scare off many long-time fans, it will put off new or casual readers. I've seen panel after panel of industry experts discussing the need to not only to expand manga's reader base, but also to retain readers as they age or finish series; making manga more expensive contradicts both those goals.
Viz Says: Everybody's Doing It, So Why Can't We?
Here's Viz's official line about the price increase (via Comics Worth Reading):
“VIZ Media made the decision to stay consistent with the pricing in the marketplace for this industry, which in some cases might be a slight increase from previous years.”
Lori Henderson, I agree with you: what a PR doozy. Essentially, Viz says it's raising prices because everyone else did. Not only is that not a compelling reason from a consumer's point of view, it's also probably not the real reason.
Over on Twitter, Deb Aoki pointed out potential business factors behind the increase:
- lower print runs (due to lower demand due to the economy) that raise costs
- an increasingly unfavorable dollar to yen exchange rate
- increases in both paper & printing prices
She went further, explaining that tankoubon in Japan remain relatively less expensive because of higher print runs and lower bookstore cuts. After reading her thoughts, I stopped making the Yashiro face–for about two seconds. Then I remembered Viz's line.
Why is Deb Aoki doing a better job of explaining Viz's prices than Viz itself? Nothing she said was embarrassing or potentially damaging to Viz's image. In fact, it helps fans understand the price increase as being essential, i.e., Viz raised prices because it had to, not just because it thought the market (you) could bear it. So why did Viz waste its opportunity to sell consumers on the price increase?
I also don't get the anger leveled at fans protesting higher prices (some, admittedly, cross over from protesting to flat-out whining, but not all).
I work at a bookstore. I say this with love, but customers are cheap and self-centered. All of them, including me, when I am one. No one comes into my store wondering how he or she can keep me in business. Everyone wants to get more for less. That's normal.
What's more, no business can expect consumers to intuitively understand its inner workings and sympathetically fill in the blanks, as Deb Aoki did. Especially if said business sends out obtuse press releases to explain policy changes.
I Say: It's About Value, Real and Perceived
The reason I'm so critical of Viz's PR response is because it's a big policy change (a 25% price increase is anything but "slight"), during a time when everyone's hurting financially and already cutting back on optional expenses. Viz needed to sell that price hike, and they didn't.
As it is, I don't believe Shonen Jump & Shojo Beat titles are worth $9.99 without an increase in paper quality. To my (admittedly untrained) eye, SB & SJ releases have paper quality similar to Tokyopop's. Given that TP is everyone's kicking dog precisely for its perceived cost/value difference, I'm surprised at the "it's just $1 or $2 more, get over it" shoulder shrugging.
UPDATE: John Jakala proves Tokyopop deserves its kicking dog status (alas!). I stand corrected.
Of course, it's not just $1 or $2 more. SJ & SB series tend to be long; with Naruto, for example, it's not an extra $2 we're talking about, but an extra $80+ for one series.
Still, it's not just about ultimate price. Rather, it's about the value. I don't mind paying $10.99-$12.95 for certain Yen Press, DMP, or Viz Signature titles. They have good paper, a larger-than-average trim size, nice binding, maybe some color images. Plus, you're getting classic work by Fumi Yoshinaga, Naoki Urasawa, etc., all for less than a trade paperback ($14.99). That's a good deal.
But $9.99 for Mixed Vegetables on sub-mass market quality paper? Pah! I've seen comments along the lines of "at least we're not back to the dark ages where everything costs $15-$20."
From one crotchety old manga reader to another: we better not be. Those $15.99 volumes from 1996 are of a completely different quality than SJ & SB titles. As an example:
Above are volumes of Shojo Beat series Skip Beat! (circa 2007) and Maison Ikkoku (circa 1996). In the the left hand photo, Skip Beat! sits atop Maison Ikkoku (the blue book), spines aligned; in the right hand photo, Maison Ikkoku is on the left.
The Shojo Beat title is a 1/2 inch smaller both ways, and look at the paper. This book sat on a shaded store shelf for less than a year, and it looks older than a 12-year-old book. Seriously. I have several other volumes of both series, and they all look similar (i.e., I didn't cherry-pick for dramatic effect). Shot of the interior:
Still, is it better than nothing? Sure (I will take my Skip Beat! any way I can get it). But measuring current prices against the going rate in 1996 is comparing apple and oranges.
Read more: John Jakala on Tokyopop's price rise; ANN forum on Viz's new prices; another ANN forum on Viz's & Dark Horse's price increases; Johanna Draper Carlson conducted a reader survey on the issue, then discussed the results.
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Related: Robert over at Robert's Anime Corner offered more on the bookseller's side of the price hike:
At some point retailers will no longer be able to subsidize stocking the low selling manga series against the revenue from the hit series. No one will be able to keep stocking much manga except the very best sellers on 10% (or lower) margins. Who would want to? (link)
I agree, except I think "at some point" is now. David Welsh's post "Shop of dreams" made me wistful; over the past year, I've watched my store's manga section dwindle into a list of bestsellers, mostly Shonen Jump or Shojo Beat titles.
We've got four shelves of Naruto, but nothing by Fumi Yoshinaga, Tezuka, or Ai Yazawa. We have few Yen Press/Del Rey/Dark Horse titles, and zero CMX titles. And it's only going downhill from here.
In the next two posts, I'll write some about the limits of the manga marketplace & what Viz is doing right (because they have done a lot of smart things lately and deserve props).
Excellent, balanced post. I’m happy to see I’m not the only one who likes to post photos of book quality comparisons!!
Yeah, I don’t begrudge publishers trying to stay in business but the double whammy of higher prices and lower quality is a real goodwill-killer.
And you’re right: Deb Aoki for Viz’s head of PR!!!
Thanks, John! Photos are the best (1000 words and so on). I’m still shaking my head over your Sgt. Frog pics.
Glad you think the post is balanced; I really tried to be fair. I felt bad picking on Viz in the first place, as they’ve done many cool things lately (and nothing as bad as Tokyopop’s double whammy).
But that PR blurb was pitiful. Esp. when Deb Aoki did a better job with a few well-chosen tweets.