At Comic World News, David Welsh looks at the new omnibus-edition trend among U.S. manga publishers:
Dallas Middaugh, Associate Publisher of Del Rey Manga, neatly summarized the benefits of the multi-volume collection for publishers: “All manga publishers share the problem of shelf-space constraints, and publishing omnibus editions is a great way to address that problem,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to sell one backlist title to Barnes & Noble than it is to sell three. It’s also very useful for keeping interest in a series that has no new volumes coming out. A new volume usually bumps sales on previous volumes, even if it’s not a huge amount. Once a series is done, it’s way too easy for retailers to not restock it on the shelves when there are so many new manga coming in.”
Shelf-space constraints are becoming a concern for me, too. Last summer, I bought a multi-media cabinet that, although designed for DVDs and CDs, is the perfect size for manga; I figured it would be more than enough to hold my collection for years to come.
As of last week, I’m officially out of manga-storage space.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I don’t buy manga, but have the same feeling with the mainstream comics that I buy; omnibus editions are terrific, but so often my bookshelves just don’t have the capacity to hold them without offloading at least the original source paperbacks first.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Can we see a pic of your shelves Kevin?