Are you one of the 540 people who’ve pre-registered for Yaoi Jamboree? It’s time to sign up if you haven’t. I’m so excited about the events we’ve got lined up.

Yaoi Jeopardy - We got the proper permits to be able to offer CASH PRIZES! (Taxable, sorry). Contestants will be attendees screened right at the show. With multiple games culminating in a final show-down I think it’s going to be the hit of the convention!

Death Note, Bleach, Naruto, Harry Potter, and Gundam Wing yaoi parody skits!

Yaoi Bingo, the Bishounen Wheel, Yaoi Improv, Catch a Bishie for a Prize, Costume Contest, Slants Concert, Dance, Yaoi PJ Party, Fan Panels, Industry Panels, Artists, Games, Anime, Vendors, an Auction, and more!

Guests Eiki Eiki (Art of Loving, Dear Myself), Mikiyo Tsuada (Princess Princess), Le Peruggine (Winter Demon, Cain), Aoi Futaba, and Kurenai Mitsuba (Level C, West End).

We’re really going the extra mile to make the very first Yaoi Jamboree incredible. Be at the first show to get that 2008 tee-shirt so you can sport it around when you go to Yaoi Jamboree 2012.

Winter Demon will continue in Germany. I’m happy to say Fire Angels purchased rights to volumes 2 and 3 at the same time, with an option for the fourth and final volume.

Of course I get a little puffed out chest at the success of Winter Demon 1 in Germany, since I wrote it. It’s one thing to publish your own writing and have it successful. Another thing to be chosen by a publisher and have your work (and that of some fantastic artists) prove its merit to them. Artists Le Peruggine really put their hearts into the series. I think their art in volume 3 is the best work they’ve done so far in their lives. I adore them!

Also licensed to my second publishing partner in Germany is Dany&Dany’s newest project coming out in November. This is the third book they’re doing just for Yaoi Press (after Lily and the Rose and Dark Dreams). Wild Side grabbed it before I could even think of shopping it around. The Wild Side publisher is one smart women who I was lucky enough to spend time with at the 2006 Yaoi Con. I wish I was as pragmatic as her.

I’m extremely honored to be a guest at the following shows:

Anime Central - Weekend of May 16th with the lovely Dany&Dany
Anime North - Weekend of May 25th
Anime Expo - Weekend of July 3rd with the lovely le Peruggine

Being a guest lets me have more fun at shows than when I’m simply promoting Yaoi Press. I love meeting fans. I love giving panels or doing stage events. I’m always ready to jump in and do an extra panel or event off the cuff when a scheduled panelist didn’t make it. I’m uninhibited in front of crowds: being a little nutty, non sequitor, and edgy to get laughs. The Anime community is so friendly. It’s easy to have fun.

If you’re at Tekkoshocon this weekend please come by our two booths in the dealers room and say hello. My east coast staff person was unable to do this one, so I scrambled to get a plane ticket to Pittsburgh a few days ago.

You can keep track of all the Yaoi Press and Yaoi Jamboree convention appearances through our Google Calendar Account.

This is one manga-ai publisher benefiting from the weak dollar. We don’t buy many licenses, but we do sell a lot. The low dollar is turning our licensing fees into bargains. German licensors are signing contracts for books that don’t even have cover images yet. Their price has dropped by around 20%, but I don’t see any difference in the USD amount I’m wire transferred.

A Dutch publisher in Indonesia wants to have us censor some of our best offerings so the government will allow them to print. Brazil and Hungary have finally opened up to negotiation. I’m getting emails in indecipherable languages on a weekly basis.

The shipping cost of the parasols made export impractical before. The lower dollar is essentially making shipping to Europe free.

When I first considered going to Anime North in 2007 my plan was to just charge the USD cover prices, and take a hit when I converted the currency. We didn’t end up going in 2007, but I was invited to be a guest of honor this year. This is great. I can charge cover prices and the currency exchange in the end will just about be even.

I know inflation is bad. I hate that plane tickets have skyrocketed, and gasoline is outrageous. Besides these two things, I don’t feel the effects. I haven’t been touched by the mortgage crisis because I own my home outright. Food is no more expensive now than it was in 2006. Clothes seem to have gotten even cheaper. I can’t believe how cheap computers are now. The $500 computer I bought last month has better specs than the $2000 Toshiba I bought a year ago.

Not everything is perfect for Yaoi Press. We’re carrying more debt than I’d like, and a recent change our distributor made where publishers must now eat shortages reported by retailers has significantly reduced our only reliable source of income. I’m happy to get a push from any source I can.

I just read the ICV2 article about Harper Collins starting an imprint that will only sell on a nonreturnable basis, won’t pay for premium store display space, will focus marketing on the internet, and won’t pay author advances.

My first thought is: Subtract the Harper Collins name and this is no different than some guy with almost no money deciding to become a publisher in his basement. I can think of several tiny publishers that have the same practices. No distributors. Very little risk of to their own capital.

These tiny companies often end up exploiting creators. Will the Harper Collins name be enough to generate a sales volume that will ensure authors are adequately compensated? They’re cutting costs in marketing and returns. These are two huge expenses for publishers. Is it right to cut the advances too? It’s an experimental program that could bomb. The authors will presumably have to do as much work producing a book for this program as for any traditional publishing program. Why should they have to assume so much more risk to participate?

Publishing is a tough business. Of course, I know this first hand. It’s also a cooperative effort between creators and management. Creator costs should not be considered different than salary for other employees. The creators are the most important ‘employees’ of all. You wouldn’t ask for an accountant to work a year before seeing their first paycheck. Maybe the accountant would say ok if they were guaranteed a certain amount in the end. They’re asking for an ok for possibly no future reward. I say ‘no’ as in zero. None at all, or sometimes $20. This is what I’ve seen smaller companies pay (or not) in royalties.

I must point out that the article didn’t mention ‘royalties’ but ‘profit sharing.’ I could be missing something in this equation that will prove it’s fair to authors.

More Yaoi Jamboree Guests!
For those of you whom I’ve whispered this to: It’s official and can go public. Aoi Futaba and Kurenai Mitsuba, the mangaka team behind such yaoi titles as Level C and A Kings Lesson are confirmed as guests for Yaoi Jamboree. I had the confirmation I needed to announce this waiting in my email. We haven’t sent the press release yet.

Media Blasters is a major presence at Yaoi Jamboree, and I know they’ll be involved with our guests. I can’t say that they’re hosting the guests per se since this time our Japanese translator (borrowed from Go!Comi, I love you Christine!) contacted these two mangaka directly. Obviously, with Media Blasters publishing both the Level C manga and DVD, as well as ‘A Kings Lesson’ they’ll take some part in the guests appearances.

Please bear with me on the press kits. We’ve just finished a major convention blitz with Anime Matsuri, Anime Boston, and Sakura con in the last two weeks. I hope bloggers will pick up this news and spread it around while we get organized.

Yaoi Jamboree Charity Auction
Yaoi Jamboree will have a charity auction to benefit 1 Voice, the LGBT community center in Phoenix. We are seeking donations for the auction. This will be announced on the news wire soon also. Bloggers please grab the news here! It’s an extremely worthy cause. I would have benefited from a center like this when I was struggling with my own sexual identity when I was younger.

Free Passes for Yaoi Jamboree at Phoenix Pride
Yaoi Jamboree Chair Kyla Mills will be distributing free weekend passes at Phoenix Pride the weekend of April 12th. Rather than just handing these out like a promotional flyer, we’re requiring people who accept the pass to fill out the registration form. We’ll email reminders to them prior to the show.

Phoenix Pride is obviously not an anime convention. Many (probably most) people in the gay community aren’t familiar with yaoi. We want Yaoi Jamboree to be a welcoming environment for gay, bi, yaoi fan-girls, and the ‘y-curious.’

Any person 18 or older is welcome to get their free weekend pass at our tent at Phoenix Pride. This is the only show where we plan on distributing passes for free. It may not be enough just to pique curiosity to get the uninitiated to attend the show. We feel that giving out free passes is a sure way to get these folks to check it out, and become life-long yaoi addicts.

Borders Books picking up Yaoi Press titles in February 2007 caused us to nearly double our print runs. There was so much great news coming from the chain, like an even greater expanded manga section. Now they’re having financial troubles and ICV2 reported about the possibility of Barnes and Nobles purchasing the chain.

Barnes and Nobles purchasing Borders is the absolute worst case resolution to this situation. It’s not just the fact that stores would close, but B&N is overly conservative and does not capitalize on the graphic novel boom. B&N stores treat graphic novels like any other small section, like travel books or cook books. At the New York Comic Con GN conference last year the buyer said they saw no reason to change their graphic novel acquisition strategy. B&N currently only buys 3% of the amount that Borders buys of our books (less than 100 copies per title). I’ve discussed promoting Yaoi Press books more aggressively to B&N with my distributor. My rep says it’s a lost cause. They don’t buy many graphic novels. They especially don’t buy the ‘mature readers’ ones. I’m sure there are single stores out there that are exceptions to this, because B&N does buy some copies of our books. I’m telling you what I see overall.

The best case scenario from my perspective is converting the Borders stores into ‘Graphic Novel World’ and just having the chains sell graphic novels exclusively. I can dream can’t I? Stores that just focus on graphic novels are overdue. Comic shops do not fill this niche. Book stores have too much other product competing for shelf space. Graphic novels have been the largest growth segment in book sales for numerous years. It’s time to have Border-sized stores featuring nothing but GNs.

In the absence of this, the next best thing are comic shops. They’ll benefit from any Borders demise. I’m sure you could argue that the sales rut many shops see is because of Borders providing such a comfortable shopping alternative to the often male customer oriented comic stores. (If your local comic shop doesn’t have a concrete floor, I’m sure you’ve been to one in your lifetime that does. I’m lucky to have Alternative Reality comics in Las Vegas. It’s an environment friendly to both genders. I wish comic shops would stop whining about the lack of manga sales, and start making their stores seem less like fan-boy bat caves wallpapered with cleavage and cameltoes. The shopping environment problem stems from comic stores having been opened by male superhero comic fans. The kind rightfully offended by their accurate depictions in the new Superhero movie). I’ve all but abandoned any marketing to comic shops, but now is the time to pick it up again.

Lucky me that this years Diamond Retailer Summit is in my home town of Las Vegas this year.

We have our first guests for Yaoi Jamboree. Yaoi Press creators Le Perrugine (Winter Demon, Cain) will be there. DMP will be hosting Eiki Eiki the mangaka behind Art of Loving, Dear Myself, and Worlds End; and Mikiyo Tsuada (Princess Princess, Day of Revolution) who also creates yaoi under the pen-name Taishi Zao.

I can’t thank Digital Manga Publishing enough for all the help they gave me. I was as naive as they come about inviting guests. I’m so thrilled we managed to get these amazing mangaka. I’m also biting my tongue right now about two more guests who’s first reply to my translator was, ‘We’re leaning towards yes, we just have some questions.’ Hopefully I can add their names to the guest-list soon.

It’s shaping up to be a great show!

We definitely underestimated our hotel room needs for Yaoi Jamboree. If you’ve tried to book hotel and get a ‘No Rooms Available’ message, please try again later this week. We are seeing about adding 100 more rooms to the convention block.

I was looking at sponsorship opportunities at Anime Expo, and I noticed that Central Park Media is sponsoring a number of events:

http://www.anime-expo.org/convention-info/professional/sponsorship/

That’s really great to see. This company is on my want-list of exhibitors for Yaoi Jamboree. I’m soliciting them once we confirm the guests of honor. But speaking of Yaoi Jamboree exhibitors, an early list of confirmed vendors is up on the site now:

http://www.yaoijamboree.com/vendors.html