I think you (and big publishers in general) are underestimating the market for this. Amazon keeps suggesting yaoi manga after yaoi manga to me. The manga publishers have clearly found it profitable to pick up and translate a bunch of yaoi and shounen ai stories, from bigger names like CLAMP to probably any sort of yaoi they could find that another company hadn't picked up.
I'm not surprised to hear YA is making strides in this, since that would seem to be one of the primary points of overlap with the manga audience. The other being sf/f.
I'm not a romance reader, but I can understand why the fans are pounding on the door waiting to be let in. These stories are primarily romance stories told by women for women. Why wouldn't they turn to the romance section to look for more?
The first big publisher to publish a line of m/m books by women for women is going to hear 'kaching!' Provided they've understood the market properly.
Me, I'm kind of rooting for one of the smaller publishers to become a player. They know where it's at and it's always fun to cheer for the underdog.
>Amazon keeps suggesting yaoi manga after yaoi manga to me.
I know that Amazon isn't the basis for your entire argument, but it's difficult to trust Amazon recommendations as an indicator of the market. They've made targeted marketing into an art form. If you buy one book about frisbee golf, you're going to be recommended pretty much every other frisbee golf book out there.
I know Anna's said it many times before: Amazon sales are usually a very tiny part of the market.
I used Amazon because I don't get to bookstores that often, and usually when I'm there, I'm there for something specific. When I browse, it's on Amazon or other online bookstores. Also, it's not clear when browsing in a bookstore what's shounen ai/yaoi and what isn't. At least not just by looking at spines. In the Amazon recommendations, it's often pretty clear.. they put (yaoi) after a lot of them and I'm shown covers, not spines.
It's the sheer quantity of different yaoi manga Amazon recommends that surprises me. A couple of years ago, you wouldn't have seen that. Manga translation has exploded and I'm glad to see a variety. It used to be all you'd get was shounen/boy's manga like Dragonball.
And to respond to the most recent post, I don't read manga because I like manga and graphic novels. I read them because I'm interested in the stories that are being told there. Stories I can't get anywhere else (except anime and some Japanese live action shows). I've also read a few modern Japanese novels in translation. They're a different animal from American/British/Canadian/Australian/other English novels, granted, but they're.. perhaps a step from manga towards English novels. I would absolutely love to see more Japanese novels translated, particularly any shounen ai/yaoi ones!
The Japanese language and culture interests me, but it's also just how many stories have GLBTQ characters. Some good, some bad, some main characters, some side, some comedic, and some tragic. They're relatively easy to find in manga and anime. They're a lot more difficult to find in English fiction.
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Shounen Ai
(Anonymous) 2006-06-22 12:21 pm (UTC)(link)I'm not surprised to hear YA is making strides in this, since that would seem to be one of the primary points of overlap with the manga audience. The other being sf/f.
I'm not a romance reader, but I can understand why the fans are pounding on the door waiting to be let in. These stories are primarily romance stories told by women for women. Why wouldn't they turn to the romance section to look for more?
The first big publisher to publish a line of m/m books by women for women is going to hear 'kaching!' Provided they've understood the market properly.
Me, I'm kind of rooting for one of the smaller publishers to become a player. They know where it's at and it's always fun to cheer for the underdog.
-Jellyn Andrews
Re: Shounen Ai
I know that Amazon isn't the basis for your entire argument, but it's difficult to trust Amazon recommendations as an indicator of the market. They've made targeted marketing into an art form. If you buy one book about frisbee golf, you're going to be recommended pretty much every other frisbee golf book out there.
I know Anna's said it many times before: Amazon sales are usually a very tiny part of the market.
Re: Shounen Ai
(Anonymous) 2006-06-24 12:39 pm (UTC)(link)It's the sheer quantity of different yaoi manga Amazon recommends that surprises me. A couple of years ago, you wouldn't have seen that. Manga translation has exploded and I'm glad to see a variety. It used to be all you'd get was shounen/boy's manga like Dragonball.
And to respond to the most recent post, I don't read manga because I like manga and graphic novels. I read them because I'm interested in the stories that are being told there. Stories I can't get anywhere else (except anime and some Japanese live action shows). I've also read a few modern Japanese novels in translation. They're a different animal from American/British/Canadian/Australian/other English novels, granted, but they're.. perhaps a step from manga towards English novels. I would absolutely love to see more Japanese novels translated, particularly any shounen ai/yaoi ones!
The Japanese language and culture interests me, but it's also just how many stories have GLBTQ characters. Some good, some bad, some main characters, some side, some comedic, and some tragic. They're relatively easy to find in manga and anime. They're a lot more difficult to find in English fiction.
-Jellyn Andrews