| Member Join Date: Jan 2001 Gender:  Posts: 2,311 Thanks: 1 Thanked 2 Times in 2 Posts Points: 3,881.69 Bank: 510.00 Total Points: 4,391.69 | A CALL TO ARMS!!!
Hi there, Anime/Manga fans. All is not well, these are dark days. SLAYERS MAY BE CANCELED FOR GOOD!!! I started reading the Slayers novels, I have volumes 1-6 that Tokyopop has release. There are great reads, I just couldn't put them down! If your into Fantasy, or series that have that RPG feel, or just a great series, look no further than Slayers! Slayers is about a sorceress Lina Inverse, and her adventures. What is intereasting is that it is told though her eyes. It makes you feel like your in the Slayers world, that Lina is telling you her adventures, and she is talking to you, that your not just simply 'watching' everthing. But, Tokyopop may cancel this series. Unless, sales go up. Here are some quotes form the Tokyopop's Forum, Slayers novels topic: http://messageboard.tokyopop.com/for...hread.php?t=70 [BTW, the user that has the same name as me, Pacman, is me] Quote: Blu Moon:
I'm personally sending a message to Tokyopop, on my behalf, not necessarily the whole of SC: It'll take 230 dollars to get to Otakon and back, and 50 to get in, if only to publicise that I feel Slayers has been done wrong in being cancelled. This is all money that could have been channeled into your products, which I refuse to buy any of until it Slayers is re-released. And I'm not the only one who's made such a statement.
Okay, look. Once the books make a certain number of sales, we get the green light to go ahead and try and license more. We're hoping sales will at least reach a point where we can offer on the last two of the books in the current story arc. So we're looking into things (as always.)
But I have to be honest now, your almost constant pushing and pushing (and your tone as quoted above) is coming off as rude, and it's making me less and less interested in your cause. Ease up. It's being looked into. Numbers research takes time. The numbers make the call--it's a purely objective and business-driven decision, as I told you in the beginning--so no matter how many times you post here, or send letters, or email the Editors, there's nothing more we can do for you. We've championed Slayers again and again in meetings, Sales and Marketing are well aware of how Slayers fans feel, and once book sales meets its magic number, we can at least try and finish out the arc. (I know we'll never do all 15 volumes unless Slayers gets back on TV and the fandom swells into a novel-buying frenzy. As it stands, sales were so low we almost didn't cover the cost of printing. A company isn't going to continue to make something that actually LOSES them their investment. That's just the way it is. And before you scream poor advertising, Slayers was advertised on Internet sites and in our books. Advertising takes more money than it does to print a book.) So, please--PLEASE--stop badgering, okay? Links to your threats of boycott and telling TOKYOPOP Editors over and over that you feel we've done you a disservice by having to cancel a series that we ourselves enjoy and wanted to see more of isn't productive.
If you would like to go to a convention, please go. If you want to make flyers to alert fans that books are available, that's sweet and awesome and just might do wonders for sales. (Again, TOKYOPOP is already aware of all this, you don't have to get our attention--we don't need any more mail about this. If you want to get fellow otaku interested in Slayers novels, awesome, but sending us pictures and stuff isn't going to help, b/c again, it's all about sales numbers.) If you want to make a flyer that criticizes TOKYOPOP left and right for only being able to afford to do 6 volumes of a series (that we actually all like, even) that makes me a sad panda, but it's, as you point out, your money that you could be spending on fun things.
In my own life, I always try to be gracious, understanding, and patient. (It doesn't always work out that way. ) But as an Editor representing my company, I try even more so to be polite and to respect dissention. But I don't think it would cast my company in a negative light if I draw a line. And I'm drawing one now. Discussion, debate, constructive criticism, etc.--all good things. Badgering, blaming, and vilifying us is not cool. (If you want to do it on your own site, fine; I should have known better than to follow a link, shouldn't I? Never leads to a warm fuzzy feeling.)
But while here on TOKYOPOP's space, why not use this thread to talk about elements of the books you love so much, instead of using it as a stick to poke the Editors? We've done all we can for you, now I'm telling you to stop poking us please.
Thank you. | Quote: Blu Moon:
Minerva, that is enough. That is absolutely enough. I will not accept this behavior on my novels forum--it's like watching a child throw a tantrum. The situation changed for the Editors too--Editors do not make the call on what continues or gets stopped--the numbers do. I've said that again and again and again.
No one asked you (or anyone) to buy more than 1 copy of a book. I said it'd be sweet if you spread the word to your friends and fellow fans to buy books, maybe give some as gifts, but I've never asked anyone to go out and buy multiple copies for themselves.
Furthermore, as it's been stated all over this forum, the standard industry practice is to license things in threes. We licensed the first three Slayers novels. They sold OK. We loved the story, we licensed the next three. Those sold so bad we almost couldn't cover the cost of printing. (Novels really begin to die off after the third volume. Sometimes well known fantasy stuff can go up to 5. Really unique stuff, like a Harry Potter or something, might make it to 7, but it's hard to maintain interest without the property also being on TV/ in the movies.) Marketing and Sales made the call--all funding for Slayers stopped. While I went around on LJ communities and yahoogroups and promoted it under my own accounts in my very limited free time, and I made sure Slayers novels were advertised in the back of all the other novels under my name, that was about all I could do.
TOKYOPOP is not EVER going to tell outsiders about any sort of numbers--print runs, cost of printing, cost of website, number of sales, whatever. That is privileged information, I don't even have access to all of it, and if it got around, competitors could sink us. Telling us you could spent $200 some odd dollars on our titles is not numbers research. On every book is a scan triangle or barcode. Every time anyone makes a sale in a US bookstore, that code is scanned. It goes into a large publishing database, like BookScan, and it is stored. Several months must go by, to see if that book is reported damaged, or stolen, disfigured, or returned. All those cut into net sales. We can guestimate, but it takes time to get actual numbers, and Slayers numbers are low enough that guestimating doesn't prove to Sales that it's a safe bet to print again. And that's what we pay the people in Sales to do--to keep us from printing books that will drive us under.
Now, the Editors discussed Slayers with Sales, back and forth, there were meetings. We got told no. We got told yes. We got told to hold off. Our website said that there were 15 novels of the Slayers series. And that is true. There are 15 novels in existence. When we started publishing Slayers (long before I was hired), it was our hope--our expectation--that it was a big enough property that people would be all over it and we'd not only do all 15 volumes, but we'd have multiple reprints. Could you please show me exactly where it said that TOKYOPOP would absolutely beyond all doubt publish all 15? Because that's something I can at least take to Sales and Marketing and show them. But all I saw was mention that there were 15 books in existence. We don't have the rights to 7-15 (yet?) so if another company wants to publish them, they could. No one is touching this property b/c it is old and sales tanked and anyone in the industry that has access to BookScan (they all do) can see that. They know better.
Now, because we love Slayers and because you guys (a small minority to be sure, but still, important) were so passionate about it, I've been able to get this topic back into discussions again, and in a few more weeks, to try and offer on volumes 7 and 8 to at least complete the story arc. But this sense of entitlement--and the belief that if you just keep badgering us we can wave a magic wand and give you what you want--shows a complete lack of understanding of how publishing works. If you want to boycott, be my guest. (But if lots of people follow suit, that means less sales for other books, so don't be surprised if other series you like mysteriously don't get finished.)
You know, I feel like you're approaching this from a negative angle. It's like you're saying 1. TOKYOPOP mishandled something we love. 2. We must band together against TOKYOPOP through boycotts and letters and forums and flyers. 3. We must demand (without behaving outright insane) that TOKYOPOP give us what we want, regardless of if it hurts TOKYOPOP. We shall win this war!
And this shows a fundamental difference in our line of thinking. Of all the novels TOKYOPOP has done, I think Slayers got the best translation, rewrite, design (available at the time.) It's one of the few series that hasn't had mistakes or consistency issues. The only Manga Novel that got more advertisement was .hack, and that's a huge property. Like, six times bigger than Slayers, so of course bookstores and ad buyers were all in favor of spotlighting something that hot--it's gonna make them money.
So maybe rather than seeing TOKYOPOP as The Enemy that must be shown the light and brought to justice, you could look at this situation and say 1. TOKYOPOP brought Slayers to us when no one else touched the books for years. 2. We must band together and get the word out, organize our fandom, build a cohesive fanbase. 3. We must hope that either sales are good enough that TOKYOPOP can continue without losing their shirts, or some other publisher with money to burn can pick up the rest of the volumes. Because that's a productive, positive, non-blaming way of acting in favor of Slayers novels. Casting TOKYOPOP as the bad guy and fans as the good guys and saying that the fans must keep pushing the bad guys to do the right thing isn't doing anything to help your case--it's just making the Editor bonkers.
There is only so much I can do, there is only so much you can do. You have done MORE than enough. And no one asked you to do it. So I really applaud your drive. But now that drive is driving me insane. You need to let Sales do their job, crunch some numbers, see. Let me do my job, and at least champion volumes 7 and 8. But I give you my word--if "the nice ends" you will lose my support, and I'm the only one at TOKYOPOP being vocal about Slayers now.
I've got 4 books on my desk due to the printer. They've all got serious issues. I've got data coding and logging for Library of Congress. I've got a million meetings about trying to launch original fiction and boys love fiction and young adult fiction. I've got submissions to go through. I've got conference calls with translators and rewriters and consultants. I've got licensor requests. Book cover design meetings. Format meetings. Copy edits waiting. Blue lines to check. Contracts to get out. Invoices to push through. And, oh yeah, I need to edit. I'm busy. I've HEARD you. I know what you want. I am in agreement. There is no need to keep pushing at TOKYOPOP. If you absolutely feel you must do something for Slayers, then promote the title to fellow fans and friends by word of mouth. Do what I can't--meet people, talk about what you share in common, spread the good word.
But stop poking me. You already won me over, I've wanted to make you happy since the beginning. Now you're starting to really chafe. All I'm asking for is that you go about your life, doing the things you enjoy, (preferably without bad mouthing TOKYOPOP, but it’s your money/ paper/ site) and please wait and let me try and get volumes 7 and 8. If you can't show me that small courtesy, then that's it. Volume 6 is where TOKYOPOP's relationship with Slayers ends, and you can try and badger other companies to pick it up, but I sincerely doubt they will, unless it gets back on TV and new blood pumps into the fandom.
I'd really like it if you'd use TOKYOPOP's forum to discuss the details in the novels--what characters you like, what elements of writing style you enjoyed, how they could be better, what hooked you on them in the first place, etc.--because that's constructive and gets people interested. In the mean time, I'm asking you to stop pushing me, and let me do things the industry's way to get 7 and 8. Now, does that sound like a fair compromise? | THIS MAKES ME SAD.  SLAYERS SHOULD NOT BE CANCEL! SO BUY THE SLAYERS NOVELS! AND TELL FRIENDS ABOUT THEM! Please, they are great reads.  I haven't heard anyone talking about them! Yet, I seen people talk about Naruto and Bleach, etc. COME ON! THERE ARE MORE SERIES THAN JUST NARUTO AND BLEACH! I and many other fans do not want to see Slayers cancel. Slayers is worth it. This topic is to talk about what can be done. Also, to people who don't know what Slayers is, to tell them what it is about and get them inetreasted in the series and buy the novels. HELP SAVE SLAYERS! |
05-07-2006, 12:11 AM 
