As I said a few weeks ago in the 4th year anniversary post, there were going to be some exciting new features upcoming in 2015, and this is one that I’m glad we can get started here, and that is an inside look into the industry we love (or hate, or love to hate, etc). Titled Inside the Industry (the feature name), every 1st Friday of the month we will have someone that’s working (or used to work) in the industry share something that you may not know about the industry, a detailed look into a title, advertising methods — heck, even prep for a convention, etc! In the end, the hope is you’ll get some insight from it.
When thinking on who to kick off this feature, one name immediately came to mind to set the tone. It immediately dates back to when I talked to her and let her rant for nearly an hour. Yep, I talked to former Editor at Tokyopop (now editing manga as a freelancer) and staff at Chromatic Press, Lillian Diaz-Przybyl, and convinced her to start this off.
Since this is an inaugural feature there may be some kinks to work out, but if you have any suggestions (from what part of the industry you want to focus on, who to invite to this feature, etc), email us at organizationasg at gmail dot com.
Without further ado, here’s what Lillian wrote about her time away from the acquiring process of manga and being nowhere in that conversation. – Justin
Closing Doors and New Opportunities
It’ll be four years this March since I left TOKYOPOP, and my career path since then has definitely gone through some interesting shifts. I’m a full-time freelancer these days, working on a variety of projects, but a decent portion of my income continues to come from manga editing for various companies, and I’m really grateful to have those kinds of opportunities. But I’m also kind of grateful that it’s not the only thing I do anymore. For one thing, the downside of having your dream job is that when the going gets tough, it’s difficult to separate your passion from the frustration of not being able to do things the way you want—especially when you believe your way would be best for both a title and your business.
The realities of the publishing industry mean that there are a lot of parties involved who you must satisfy as a content producer. You have to deal with booksellers (both in brick-space and in the digital realm) who have limited time and shelf-space for your product. There are licensors with various expectations. There are your own company’s bosses and higher-ups with their plans and goals. And that’s not to mention attracting and maintaining a paying audience who will hopefully be enthusiastic of the titles you’re working so hard to produce. I loved being a part of that process, from licensing and acquisitions through book design and layout all the way to sales and marketing, but it honestly can be pretty frustrating at times.
Sometimes the book that you’re passionate about just fails to find its audience (or it finds a following, but not enough of one to justify releasing it on a fast-paced schedule, and then you have to deal with a lot of disappointed blog posts on the internet—sorry, guys! It’s a business.) Sometimes a book that ought to have a solid teenage audience drops in a sex scene or some graphic violence at volume 9 out of 30, boosting its content rating to Mature, which means that certain retailers won’t accept it (or only accept it in much smaller numbers). Sometimes you spend days or even years trying to convince a licensor of a new initiative that you believe is the wave of the future. Sometimes you want the marketing department to support a series, but another title is getting all their time and attention. Sometimes you really want to license that one great book, and for whatever reason, it just isn’t possible. (I almost always was happier that a rival publisher picked up a series, rather than it never being licensed at all.) Sometimes your boss is convinced that this one title is going to be the next big thing, and try as you might, you can’t persuade him otherwise, no matter how big a sales problem you think it’s going to be. (<<< Yes, I do have a specific title in mind for this story. No, I probably won’t tell you what it is. But it was actually a pretty good title! Just not the way the person advocating it thought it was…)
And then there’s the sense that moving up the corporate ladder potentially means doing less of what you enjoy on a day-to-day basis (working on books!), and more dealing with the bigger picture of business plans, sales strategies and profit & loss reports. Important stuff, don’t get me wrong, because that’s the nitty-gritty that will keep the company afloat. Plus, it’s interesting and challenging in its own way. But if you’re an editor at heart, you may kind of miss digging in with the title and getting your hands dirty.
Of course, any job will have its days where you feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall, but I often felt that it was particularly frustrating in a job that you love and are passionate about, because you’re reminded ten-fold just how far you’re falling from your ideal.
Don’t get me wrong—it’s great to get up in the morning and go in to an office where you get to spend your day reading cool comics. I miss that (not to mention the steady paycheck). And whatever else was true about TOKYOPOP in particular, it was absolutely phenomenal at hiring awesome people. My co-workers consistently became some of my best friends, even as we’ve scattered to the wind over the years.
But there’s a lot about the freelance side of the business that comes as kind of a relief. Now I just get to do the fun stuff! It’s someone else’s job to make sure things sell. I certainly hope they succeed, because I genuinely enjoy the work I do, and I will only be able to keep doing it if my freelance clients continue to flourish. But aside from trying to do good work that people will enjoy reading, it’s not my problem anymore. It’s someone else’s job to worry about whether or not to rate a series (or what that rating should be). Someone else gets to make the call about whether to slow down a release schedule! Someone else gets to do panel presentations at conventions. Someone else gets to field angry fan emails and forum posts! (I do still check out comment threads and look up reviews on some of my titles, but mostly just because I’m curious how people are reacting, and if they like the same things in a series that I do, rather than out of a sense of corporate responsibility.) Someone else gets to wrangle licensors and secure great titles for all of us to work on—I enjoyed the acquisitions process, but six years of that was enough to hold me for a while.
Financially, freelance manga editing is a sideline job, not something I can really afford to do full-time as my only income stream (at least as long as I continue to live in Los Angeles…). So the month-to-month grind of invoices and paychecks and deadlines can be a little draining, not to mention balancing that with whatever other work I’m doing at any given time. But overall, the experience of going from a staff job to a freelance one has been remarkably liberating.
That said, I’m apparently a glutton for punishment. I complain about how hard it is to get audiences to pay attention to what you want them to in the licensed publishing industry, and then go and make things that much worse/better for myself by starting a company to do original material instead!
Back in 2011, Lianne Sentar, a freelancer friend from my TOKYOPOP days, invited me to join her in a small publishing venture to produce original manga-style comics and illustrated light novels. It’s not something I ever could have done while working full-time at an office job (even if it weren’t a comics gig, where there might be a potential conflict of interest). My lifestyle as a freelancer gives me the kind of flexibility I need in my schedule to really commit to the work required of this new venture. We officially launched the company in the summer of 2013, and since then have run 18 issues of our online magazine, Sparkler Monthly, serializing a variety of comics and prose series. It’s so much more difficult than working on licensed content! Hooray!
But it’s so much fun, too. I’m incredibly proud of the work we’ve produced, and I feel super lucky to have gotten to work with so many talented artists and writers already. But we’ve got our work cut out for us in this coming year. Our audience thus far has been amazingly loyal and enthusiastic, but we need it to be about ten times bigger, and that’s all on us to accomplish. You’re part of a team in a larger company as well, of course, but when you’re running your own business, you really have no one to blame but yourself if something doesn’t work. Absolute control over your company means absolute responsibility as well. It’s a lot of pressure, but I’m excited to take on that challenge, both in this year, and hopefully for many years to come!
Cheers to a bright and prosperous 2015!
