Comments | urufudo: Slayers Novels: A No-Go

urufudo

Slayers Novels: A No-Go

Mar 18, 2006 14:00

Bad news... it looks like the rest of the Slayers novels aren't going to be picked up after all.

TokyoPop recently opened up an official forum at their web site. They have a section where you can ask editors questions, and both tarahime and myself had the same idea to post about their current stance on the Slayers novels. In this post, an editor tells us ( Read more... )

slayers, slayers novels, novels

Comments 8

commanderteddog March 18 2006, 21:04:22 UTC

... and yet they picked up Scrapped Princess and that's a 13 novel series. o___O

It doesn't help that sales of books in general are wacky at the moment; only 7% of titles released sell over a 1000 units and those make up 87% of the sales in the market. It would be, you know, REALLY nice to see how many books are moving.

I think that print-on-demand direct orders have a possible future, not just for Slayers but for out of print manga series as well. It would cost more (less demand = less product = higher costs) but it beats having nothing.

urufudo March 18 2006, 21:12:26 UTC

I asked the editors if they could tell us how many [more] books would need to be sold before they'd consider picking the rest of the series up, and how many have already sold, but they said they signed a confidentiality agreement and aren't allowed to share that information with anyone outside the company. :/ I can understand that, but it'd be nice to have some kind of idea of how far behind Slayers is, if only to guage whether or not we even have a faint glimer of hope of getting the rest of the series translated. X_x

Print-on-demand is a good idea and I hope they decide to go with it if they don't want to do mass printings of the novels. I'd gladly pay a bit more for the books if it means they'll actually license and print them out.

candybouquet March 18 2006, 21:11:24 UTC

Awwww I bet that was really disappointing! D:

What kind of opinions/suggestions were you guys making out of curiousity?

urufudo March 18 2006, 21:16:16 UTC

I made the suggestion of putting the books in the Fantasy section of book stores, along with all the other sword-and-sorcery fiction. I figure that they're missing out on a pretty big group of people by limiting the novels to the manga section. :X

Another girl posted the suggestion that perhaps the series just isn't being publicised as much as it could be, and suggested that Tokyopop talk about the novels more at conventions. I'd have to agree with that, since I've seen very little advertising for Slayers. It's a great series... it's just a bit old and needs to be pushed out there a little more to appeal to newer fans. ^^

candybouquet March 18 2006, 21:19:34 UTC

Ohh that is a good idea because not many people who look for books go into the manga section (obviously lol).

urufudo March 19 2006, 01:25:23 UTC

Yeah, exactly. ^^ The artist and author of the novels were big Dungeons and Dragons fans, if I remember correctly. So there's probably some interest there. :3

zidane March 19 2006, 00:48:21 UTC

Do Not Waaaant!

That sucks, because I really wanted to pick up the novels that do the story from where it diverges after Next. Fucking Try.

urufudo March 19 2006, 01:27:47 UTC

Same here. x_x I love TRY and Knight of the Aqua Lord looks interesting, but I want to read the original story! Dynast was always the one out of the five that interested me the most and it figures that his story would be the one we'd never get.

I'm still hoping that FUNimation's remastering will give the series the publicity that it really deserves. Maybe then, the novels will get more sales. Kind of looks a bit unlikely but we can always hope, right?