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AX 2010: Digital Manga Publishing Panel

Digital Manga @ Anime Expo
© Digital Manga Publishing

Digital Manga Publishing had their panel on Thursday night, the opening day of Anime Expo, and they covered a fair bit of what to expect from the company going forward with books and plans. Vampire Hunter D continues to be one of their better selling titles as remarked by the reps during the panel.

Their specific book plans for the rest of 2010 include:

• Itazura No Kiss Volume 3 is due out this summer with Volume 4 in Winter 2010
• Yashakiden by Hideyuki Kikuchi Volume 3 in its oversize edition in Winter 2010
• Vampire Hunter D Volume 5 will arrive in Winter 2010
• Wolf God, vol 1 summer 2010, should be getting it this month... 17:12:58 by Ai Tenkawa
• Alice the 101st by Chigusa Kawai, shoujo title... vol 1 summer 2010, dokidoki line actually now available
• Finder Vol 1 by Ayane Yamano, most requested Yaoi title ever, september or late august vol 2 will also be available this fall we're reissuing it with her permission
• The Tyrant falls in love by Hinako Takanaga, going to be available in august, also yaoi/june line author will be dmp guest at yaoi-con 2010
• Kizuna Deluxe vol 1 by Kazuma Kodaka, first vol in fall 2010, deluxe edition 2 vols in 1, june line.. 11  vols in 5 omnibus and a single stand alone
• Under Grand Hotel by Mika Sadahiro, vol 1 summer 2010, 801 media.... also licened the more thick editions, so 2 vols instead of 4... believe next month

Digital Manga Publishing also talked about their 2011 plans:

• Demon City Shinjuku by Hideyuki Kikuchi is coming in 2011 in a complete single edition novel format
• Countdown 7 Days by Kemuri Karakara
• Houou Gakuen Misoragumi by Aki Arara (4 volumes long, starting in 2011)
• Border by Kazuma Kodaka, JP pub Med-i-ation and DMP is going to try and do simultaneous releases with Japan
• Kusatta Kyo Shino Houteishiki by Kazuma Kodaka will begin a 5 volume omnibus release
• Gochisosama by CJ Michalski
• Boku no Shiru Anata no Hanashi by Tsuta Suzuki
• Sabaku no Oujisama by Shushushu Sakurai

DMP is also kicking off a new exclusive soon by providing animation cels for sale via their site and convention booths. They've partnered with Viz Media And Studio Pierrot to bring this over and the first title they're working with is Naruto Shippuden. Pricing is expected to be around $60. More series are in the works as well.

Something else that DMP gets to promote a bit that's really interesting is that they're going to be providing a new title called Mizuki via their emanga site exclusively. Mizuki is being created by Nao Yazawa, the woman behind Wedding Peach. In addition to that they'll be releasing a title called Moon and Blood via emanga that apparently won't be available in Japan.

When the Q&A session started up, they were asked about how they market explicit titles. Not surprisingly, it's kept to just the core fans and most of their sales are made up through Amazon and independent stories though they occasionally get a couple into the brick and mortar chains as well. Asked about the omnibus editions that are re-releases of previous titles, the reps indicated that they're working from the Libre editions and with Finder they're getting things done according to the original authors wishes with corrections included.

When asked about marketing the Finder title and why it was going to June instead of 801 Media, both parties involved felt it had a wider appeal than the much more narrowly focused 801 Media and opted to go with June. And June books tend to get into Borders more often than not while Barnes and Nobel won't even take shonen-ai books. 

You can see a more detailed breakdown of the raw panel report by the always awesome Bayoab here.