How come there are only a few manga on Amazon Kindle Store?

[bigsocce]

Kindle Store › Kindle eBooks › Comics & Graphic Novels › Manga


google the above and take a look for yourself:





I just don't get it. It's like JPOP wanting to sell music to Americans but opt not to use Itunes.


Amazon royalty rate:

70% if the list price is $2.99 or higher, 30% for anything lower than $2.99.

Let's assume they price it at $3.99 per volume. 70% would give $2.79

If they sell 30,000 manga per volume, that's $83,700 revenue per volume.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by bigsocce

70% if the list price is $2.99 or higher, 30% for anything lower than $2.99.

That's the basic pay structure, but there's one big catch for manga -- Amazon provides free wireless service for 3G-enabled Kindles, but to cover costs they charge publishers $.15/megabyte for each book sold at the 70% royalty rate. For most books that's no big deal since they weigh less than 1mb, but something with a ton of images like manga, it gets expensive. Even if you assume each page is only a quarter meg, a standard 200 page manga would have $7.50 in delivery fees. Of course the publisher could opt for the 35% rate, but why do that when there are other digital platforms they could use instead?

[aigomorla]

70% is a killer...

i guess its amazon's approach to the publisher to make the things cheaper on kindle.

[bigsocce]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

That's the basic pay structure, but there's one big catch for manga -- Amazon provides free wireless service for 3G-enabled Kindles, but to cover costs they charge publishers $.15/megabyte for each book sold at the 70% royalty rate. For most books that's no big deal since they weigh less than 1mb, but something with a ton of images like manga, it gets expensive. Even if you assume each page is only a quarter meg, a standard 200 page manga would have $7.50 in delivery fees. Of course the publisher could opt for the 35% rate, but why do that when there are other digital platforms they could use instead?

Easy way to bypass...

Make it downloadable on WIFI only.

a kindle with 3G also have WIFI.




Comics, graphic novels, children books, picture books, manga etc.....all have LOT OF PICTURES.

Most kindles sold are WIFI only device anyway. Only a few bought the 3G + WIFI version.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by bigsocce

Easy way to bypass...

Make it downloadable on WIFI only.

a kindle with 3G also have WIFI.

Amazon doesn't offer that option. The pay structure and terms of use are all freely available online; you should check them out.

Comics, graphic novels, children books, picture books, manga etc.....all have LOT OF PICTURES.

Most kindles sold are WIFI only device anyway. Only a few bought the 3G + WIFI version.

Most Kindles are also e-ink devices with tiny screens that are sub-optimal for viewing manga. The exceptions are the DX and Fire, and the Fire allows apps, so it'd make more sense to use an existing platform like Comixology than put up with Amazon's restrictions.