100,000 Yen on First Day of Digital Manga Sales

In a recent blog entry from Shuho Sato (Say Hello to Black Jack, Umizaru, among others), it was revealed that the author earned about 100,000 yen on the first day he posted his works on a digital manga service. In July, he uploaded 500 free pages but is now posting chapters of his latest serial, New Say Hello to Black Jack, for 30 yen per installment. His older works can be read on his website at an extremely inexpensive 10 yen per installment.

Sato-san decided to offer his work online due to the expenses involved in serialising and compilation books (tankoubon) and it has so far proved a good idea. Previously, he earned roughly 16 million yen per year as well as 10% of the retail price of tankoubon. That money had to be spread among his staff of six. After calculating expenses which included tax, food, paint and materials, fuel, transport, additional living expenses, and tax, each of his staff earned only 3 million yen a year compared to a company employee's the average salary of roughly 4 million yen.

Check out his website for details on how you can read his work.

And in other digital manga distribution news, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, one of the world's leading publishers of women's fiction, announced on Wednesday of plans to commence digital distribution of Harlequin comics in Korea.

Harlequin K.K. (Harlequin's Japanese division), and SoftBank Creative Corporation, one of the largest cell phone service providers in Japan, will be making digital adaptions of Harlequin manga available across four Korean portal websites -- Daum, Mr. Blue, NATE and Paran.

Harlequin is currently a leader in selling digital versions of its text-based books in the U.S. and Japan.

Sources: ANN and Reuters