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Mashiro Moritaka's Guide to Weekly Shounen Jump
... Or something like that.
Becoming a manga-ka is an incredible gamble, even for the best artists and writers. Only 1% of anyone who attempts to make it big in manga can really make enough to live just off of it. And in the fast-paced, sink-or-swim world of Weekly Shounen Jump, it's even harder to survive. Because it's one of Shueisha's cornerstone magazines, with a massive subscription rate-- in '95, it hit 6.53 million, although it's a lot lower now --, simply getting in is pretty impressive.
To even be considered for serialization, you have to have your storyboards looked over by an editor. If they're good enough, your might pass it on into one of the many new artist competitions Shueisha holds or even onto Akamaru Jump-- Shuiesha's seasonal magazine full of one shots, even though its major selling point is using name recognition from Jump's larger series by publishing four-panel comics and posters to go along with it. It's sort of a testing ground to see if authors and series concepts will succeed in Weekly Jump.
What does it take to succeed in Weekly Jump? Ranking highly in the questionaires attached at the back of each magazine. Every week, Shueisha asks readers to send in these cards ranking their top three favorite series. If two people out of every ten choose that series, it's popular. But, when you're competing with around twenty other series (KochiKame and Jaguar aren't included in the rankings anymore and HunterxHunter is impossible to compete with whenever Togashi does submit chapters), including a top three with incredibly large fanbases, it can get pretty tough.
There are two results that Jump gets off of the questionnaires-- the early results and the real deal. The early results are good for serialized artists. They're calculated by hand based off the first thousand postcards that arrive and give artists a good idea of how certain chapters were received by fans. The real deal is taken from the results of one thousand of all the postcards Shueisha receives from that issue in total. They're input into a computer and give them more detailed statistics. Since girls and young boys usually send in the most questionnaires, a lot of artists will be appealing to them.
For a good idea of how your favorite series is doing, you can usually flip to the back of any issue of Jump and look at the table of contents. If a series is doing well, you'll usually see it near the top of the table of contents. Keep in mind, the table of contents shows rankings from eight weeks ago. So, if your favorite series is lower, it usually means it had a lame chapter about two months back (Although, usually, you won't see a time when anything but One Piece, Naruto a manga about ninja, and Bleach are in the top three spots unless one of them is on hiatus). What this means is that new series don't usually show up in the rankings for the first eight weeks of their serialization unless they've debuted during the holidays, but you can usually tell how the editors in Jump feel about them by how high they're put in the rankings.
This means new series have about ten weeks to catch the attention of fans and garner enough approval to last in Jump. This isn't easy and even after the ten week point, a new series can be cut at any time if its rankings start to lag. Once a series gets a few years under its belt, it can usually survive a couple weeks' lag in ratings, but for a new series, that's deadly, even if Jump editors are giving it an extra bump in the ratings.
Why is it so hard to succeed? Why are Jump rankings based so much on fan popularity? It's because the magazine itself isn't where Shueisha makes its money. In fact, Shueisha buys back issues of Jump that don't sell from vendors. Jump provides Shueisha a rigorous schedule to keep artists on and a good understanding of what will sell in volume format. Jump is printed on extremely cheap paper, pretty much designed to last no more than a few months at best. Even the best-preserved issues will start to fade after a couple years. But, people who enjoy a series in the magazine will usually follow through by buying series in their volume format.
It's not just because volumes last longer, either. Volumes include special extras like character profiles and talks with the artist, sometimes even omake pages from issues readers have missed and things like that. Volumes also give artists the chance to correct typos and re-do art they didn't like the first time.
And that's about it, really. It's not some great artistic venture. It's just as much a business as any other. The only real difference is the stakes you're up against.
... Or something like that.
Becoming a manga-ka is an incredible gamble, even for the best artists and writers. Only 1% of anyone who attempts to make it big in manga can really make enough to live just off of it. And in the fast-paced, sink-or-swim world of Weekly Shounen Jump, it's even harder to survive. Because it's one of Shueisha's cornerstone magazines, with a massive subscription rate-- in '95, it hit 6.53 million, although it's a lot lower now --, simply getting in is pretty impressive.
To even be considered for serialization, you have to have your storyboards looked over by an editor. If they're good enough, your might pass it on into one of the many new artist competitions Shueisha holds or even onto Akamaru Jump-- Shuiesha's seasonal magazine full of one shots, even though its major selling point is using name recognition from Jump's larger series by publishing four-panel comics and posters to go along with it. It's sort of a testing ground to see if authors and series concepts will succeed in Weekly Jump.
What does it take to succeed in Weekly Jump? Ranking highly in the questionaires attached at the back of each magazine. Every week, Shueisha asks readers to send in these cards ranking their top three favorite series. If two people out of every ten choose that series, it's popular. But, when you're competing with around twenty other series (KochiKame and Jaguar aren't included in the rankings anymore and HunterxHunter is impossible to compete with whenever Togashi does submit chapters), including a top three with incredibly large fanbases, it can get pretty tough.
There are two results that Jump gets off of the questionnaires-- the early results and the real deal. The early results are good for serialized artists. They're calculated by hand based off the first thousand postcards that arrive and give artists a good idea of how certain chapters were received by fans. The real deal is taken from the results of one thousand of all the postcards Shueisha receives from that issue in total. They're input into a computer and give them more detailed statistics. Since girls and young boys usually send in the most questionnaires, a lot of artists will be appealing to them.
For a good idea of how your favorite series is doing, you can usually flip to the back of any issue of Jump and look at the table of contents. If a series is doing well, you'll usually see it near the top of the table of contents. Keep in mind, the table of contents shows rankings from eight weeks ago. So, if your favorite series is lower, it usually means it had a lame chapter about two months back (Although, usually, you won't see a time when anything but One Piece, Naruto a manga about ninja, and Bleach are in the top three spots unless one of them is on hiatus). What this means is that new series don't usually show up in the rankings for the first eight weeks of their serialization unless they've debuted during the holidays, but you can usually tell how the editors in Jump feel about them by how high they're put in the rankings.
This means new series have about ten weeks to catch the attention of fans and garner enough approval to last in Jump. This isn't easy and even after the ten week point, a new series can be cut at any time if its rankings start to lag. Once a series gets a few years under its belt, it can usually survive a couple weeks' lag in ratings, but for a new series, that's deadly, even if Jump editors are giving it an extra bump in the ratings.
Why is it so hard to succeed? Why are Jump rankings based so much on fan popularity? It's because the magazine itself isn't where Shueisha makes its money. In fact, Shueisha buys back issues of Jump that don't sell from vendors. Jump provides Shueisha a rigorous schedule to keep artists on and a good understanding of what will sell in volume format. Jump is printed on extremely cheap paper, pretty much designed to last no more than a few months at best. Even the best-preserved issues will start to fade after a couple years. But, people who enjoy a series in the magazine will usually follow through by buying series in their volume format.
It's not just because volumes last longer, either. Volumes include special extras like character profiles and talks with the artist, sometimes even omake pages from issues readers have missed and things like that. Volumes also give artists the chance to correct typos and re-do art they didn't like the first time.
And that's about it, really. It's not some great artistic venture. It's just as much a business as any other. The only real difference is the stakes you're up against.