Japan Faces Digital Black Ships?

We naturally assume that the Japanese market is far more advance digitally than the West but that is not the case. The lead that they have show in Keitai novels and Manga comics may be ahead of the curve but there are salient lessons to be learnt there. The Japanese market itself is defined differently with magazines, books and comics often all together within the same channel and and figures. In 1997 the market was some $30 billion US, today it is under $20Billion, so in just over 10 years it has shrunk 30%.

Japan has a fixed price system which is controlled under a network of wholesalers. The major publishers are currently experiencing a continual downturn in both sales and profit and most marked is the drop in comic book. Bookstores over the last 10 years have dropped by 20% from around 21 thousand to 16,400.

So will the new digital age stimulate the market or cause further collapse? Will it open up trade just as Commander Perry did with his Black Ships some 150 years ago?
We listened with interest to Hiroshi Kagawa, Publisher and owner of IBC Publishing at the recent Seoul International Book Fair.

One aspect that we didn’t respect was the Asian approach and attitude to copyright and how it differed to that in the West. Kagawa talked about the obvious issues he faces operating in a country with 50 years rules and a global market that has 70 year ones. Most interesting was his insight into contracts and the fact that they are drawn up after the publication not before, are based on a few principles and not buried in detail and specifics and that they are based on relationships. He asked whether Japan could manage the transition to the contract world of the West and if not the potential implications.

However they appear not to be waiting for the Black Ships and Kodansha, a major publisher, is planning to create 20,000 e titles this year and already have some 7,000. Major publishers have formed an association of epublishing called Denshokyo.

Kagawa closed by stating that we have created a digital tangled web where we are in danger of loosing the reader. He believes we need to find new ways of untangling the web and creating simpler and short digital entry to content. ‘In a digital era we may lose our patence and endurance to read heavy content.’

Are 'Black Ships' Entering Japan?

On July 8th 1853 four black hulled US Navy ships sailed into Edo Bay in Japan under the command of Commodore Mathew Perry. The ‘Black Ships’ demanded the opening up of trade. When asked to leave Perry refused and demanded permission to present a letter from President Millard Fillmore, threatening force if he was denied. Perry even demonstrated US naval power by attacking several building with cannon fire. The Japanese government was forced to let Perry come ashore to avoid further naval bombardment by his superior and modern weaponary.

The term "Black Ships", in Japan, came to symbolise a threat imposed by Western technology.

Japanese communications minister, Kazuhiro Haraguchi and the Electronic Book Publishers Association of Japan have now compared Apple’s iPad to the “Black Ships” that opened up Japan some 157 years ago.

Today ebook sales in Japan are significantly higher than even the US but are mainly manga comics and keitia novels on mobile phones. The mobile phone rules in Japan and even Sony and Panasonic have abandoned their ereader business in 2007 and 2008 respectfully. Amazon’s Kindle has not entered the market and no Japanese-language titles are available from its US site.

Publishers everywhere are wary on the implications of not the iPad itself but its pricing and how that may affect negotiations with authors and distributors. The Japanese publishing market is very ‘closed’ with publishers already setting retail prices and preventing discounting and with printing, publishing and distribution being strongly interconnected. So why fear these new ‘Black Ships’?

The issue is that Japan is once again very nervous of the sight of US traders that can’t be repelled and will change their way of doing business. The Stability and depth of the market is down to its economic balance and the Japanese publishers clearly feel that the Apple effect could imbalance the trade by forcing US pricing models on them. However Japan is suffering a steady decline in books and magazines revenues so will these new ‘Black Ships’ open up the market? We also have to respect that Japanese consumers, are truly mobile centric and that a tablet may be too big for them to swallow on the move.

source BusinessWeek

Used Book Royalities

News today via Asahi Shimbun reported that Bookoff Corp. (ブックオフコーポレーション Bukku Ofu Kōporēshon), Japan’s largest chain of second-hand bookshops with some 890 stores throughout Japan and ton overseas, has offered to pay the Japan Writer's Association, the Copyright Network for Comic Authors in the 21st Century and other groups 100 million yen.

Bookoff resells second-hand books in like-new condition, manga, CDs, DVDs and video games. Wikipedia cites as one of its success innovations is its practice of ‘shaving the edges off the pages of books using a special machine in order to make them appear newer’. This has enabled it to offer a wide range of books that appear new but at aggressive prices. This competes well with japanese conventional bookstore chains, who are regulated against selling new books at a discount.

The offered payment is in response to authors who have complained the sales cut into their new book sales and undercut their royalty income. Japan copyright follows that adopted by many where the copyright fee only applies to first sales.