E-books vs. print manga

[geri_chan]

I was recently debating with myself whether I should save money by buying e-book versions of manga, or pay a little extra to get the actual books. I'm running out of storage space, so having the manga on my computer saves space. Viz offers a pretty decent price for their e-books--$4.99, which is also the average price for JManga's current November sale. And most of the BL manga Kindle books seem to go for about $6 or $8 (not counting the rather outrageous $3.99 per chapter price for certain Libre titles, including Youka Nitta's Kisu Ariki and Boku no Koe).

But what if I don't love the title enough to read it more than once or twice? Or worse, what if I hated it? For the first category, I try to get those from the library, but with budget cuts, sometimes it takes so long to come in (weeks or even months) that I break down and buy it, especially if the previous volume was a cliffhanger. Or it may be an obscure title that the library doesn't buy, and for yaoi, I pretty much have to buy it myself since the library doesn't carry it--with the exception of a couple of the tamer BL titles like Menkui. But naturally they don't carry the hard-core porn!

If I have the print copy of a manga, I can donate it to the library or give it to a friend or sell it to a used bookstore. Not counting omnibus editions, most mainstream manga has a list price of about $10, while the BL stuff is priced a few dollars higher. But the local comic book shop offers a 25% discount on new titles, so it actually costs me about $7.50 to $10 per book. So I'm still losing money if I give the book away or even if I sell it, since the Book-Off pays a bit under $1 per book (and that's for books in mint condition--the sales clerk commented that the books still looked brand new the last time I went there).

But it feels like such a waste to have no recourse except to delete the e-book (thereby flushing my five bucks down the drain) or to let it sit there in my computer gathering dust (figuratively speaking). I get a good feeling when I donate manga to the library, knowing that a lot of other people will enjoy them. Selling manga doesn't have that same feel-good effect, but at least it will be read and hopefully enjoyed by someone else, and I get a little extra spending money while clearing shelf space for more manga. (Generally, the mainstream titles go to the library and the yaoi stuff goes to Book-Off.)

Hmm...so it may seem odd, but paying a few dollars more for the print version seems more economical than buying the cheaper digital version--at least in terms of how much use the manga gets.

Comments

[lawless523.livejournal.com]

Are the e-readers set up to display manga properly either? As far as I'm concerned, if they can't accommodate two pages side to side the way hard copy can, they're not. Many artists use images across two pages. That would be completely lost on a page-by-page e-reader.

I don't find digital to be a good way of delivering manga for this reason and don't understand the people saying that manga publishers should move to the web and e-readers. Yes, it costs less to produce, but the experience is also a lot different. To my mind, it loses a lot in the translation, so to speak.

[geri-chan.livejournal.com]

Viz and JManga have a pretty nice 2-page layout that I find satisfactory. The Kindle app allows you to view 2 pages at once, but that renders the manga too small to be read comfortably. (With the caveat that I haven't upgraded to the latest Mac version because I don't have the Lion OS, and I also haven't seen how things look on the new Kindle Fire device.)

I think digital publishing has potential, but there are obviously still a lot of issues that need to be worked out. That said, I have been buying the Youka Nitta stuff on Kindle because it isn't available anywhere else.

[lore]

The tablet/Reader technology hasn't quite caught up to comics yet anyway. You should check out what the comic people suggest buying.

Here's the bad news: I'm not sure some books will ever make it to "print" form. The companies have implied that if sales go well for digital-only books, they will consider printing them, but I have a feeling the market isn't going to be able to bear a print version after there's been enough sales to justify one.

Basically, I'm agreeing with you - I'm avoiding most digital editions because I can't really *own* them, only rent them. Now, Viz's new BL imprint is going to sell downloadable digital books. Those, I plan on buying because I can put them on my hard drive or even print them out for personal reading. Basically, Emanga and Jmanga can bite me. ^_^

love, lore

[geri-chan.livejournal.com]

I do hate the "rental" thing! I'm just praying that JManga doesn't go bust, because then I'll have lost all the money I spent, half-price or not! But I'm supporting them for now because they have a lot of interesting titles not available in English anywhere else, and I'm hoping that they'll become successful enough to stick around.

So...yeah, print is best, but I'll buy the digital versions that I can't get anywhere else. I've been debating about whether to "buy" the new yaoi titles done by the DMP's scanalation guilds, but have been holding off mainly because I hate Emanga's "points" system, though I hate the rental thing too. But Viz sounds like they have a pretty good reader and system, so I probably will buy some of their stuff.

Oh, and if I ever get around to buying an iPad, I can carry my manga around with me, which is one advantage to going digital! ^_^