Why would they be doing that, when all the rest have been in the GN/manga section?

Maybe the artist is confused and doesn’t realize that B&N now has 3 GN/manga sections: the regular (adult) one, one in YA, and another in kids. All the MINX books have so far been shelved in Teen Manga. The display that most of the MINX books have been on for the past month (it’s called out, so all the stores should have it) is in the YA section.

THE PLAIN JANES
#34,515 in Books
#41 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Children’s Comics

RE-GIFTERS
#130,311 in Books

CLUBBING
#349,699 in Books

GOOD AS LILY
#82,918 in Books

final Diamond sales for THE PLAIN JANES in 05.07 = about 7,550

http://comicbookpage.com/SalesEstimates/ChartDefinitions/ShowMonthChart.php?Chart=TopTradesIndex-Diamond&Year=2007&Month=05&FinalOrderIndicator=1

final Diamond sales for RE-GIFTERS in 06.07 = about 5,560

http://comicbookpage.com/SalesEstimates/ChartDefinitions/ShowMonthChart.php?Chart=TopTradesIndex-Diamond&Year=2007&Month=06&FinalOrderIndicator=1

but that’s just the direct market and supposedly these books are designed to sell well outside of comic book shops.

the artist on GOOD AS LILY says B&N isn’t even selling them in the GN/manga section of bookstores but in YA…

http://sirspamdalot.livejournal.com/34777.html

anyone find some actual sales figures from bookstores yet?

Tokyopop seems to be doing a better job in a slightly younger cohort. Their manga version of Warriors made the USA Today Booklist. Of course, that was an adaptation of an alread popular series.

DC, rarely, if ever, gives review copies. Now, I completely understand them not wanting to give out oodles of DCU freebees to the esablished comics journalism base, but to not send out review copies to non-comics review sites and publications? You’d think that would be part of the supposed $250k budget they’ve got to promote the line.

Well, not quite. I know of several comic shop owners (my husband included) who got advanced copies of The Plain Janes, but I don’t know of any journalist other than you, Colleen, who managed to get a preview copy. (DC’s view on review copies is that you know where your LCS is and can go pay for them yourselves — which works fine for their general DCU stuff.)

(As an aside, I made overtures to DC about getting some review xerox copies of Minx books for Sequential Tart and nope. Not happening. Classic DC 2 steps forward, 1 step back.)

As for Christopher’s suggestion that the Minx books “won’t appeal to manga fans” because “manga has distorted beyond all recognition any concept of what a proper narrative thread is, for young people,” I think that’s a pretty difficult claim to substantiate. My experience teaching college students suggests to me that a lifetime of being plugged in–emails, instant messaging, websurfing, channel surfing–has a far more profound impact on students’ ability to read and write than an intense love affair with Naruto.

Frankly, I doubt there’d even be a Minx line if manga hadn’t proven so popular with teenage girls. I just wish DC was as aggressive in promoting CMX’s girl-friendly series as it has been for P.L.A.I.N. Janes and Clubbing. I would have adored Emma when I was in high school.

I think most browsers aren’t sure what to make of them. And most manga readers are put off by there only being 1 book for each story.

Kids and teens love series. They have to read fiction all the time for homework, and finding a series they like means a couple months of being able to read something they know they will like, instead of having to go searching for a new author/series every few weeks or so. Or being forced to read something they don’t like on top of all the other assigned reading they get. Plus, they aren’t in control of their own time or money quite often, so being able to quickly pick up a book - or easily tell their parents to pick it up for them - is always a plus.

The MINX line consists of one book stories, with different authors and artists for each story. On top of all that, the covers are drastically different, so their isn’t much to brand them as a line except for their unusual size and shape.

I’m wondering if a lot of teens don’t see them as too big of a risk for too little of a payoff.

Here’s the problem: the Minx target audience is YA-lit readers, but the more likely audience is manga readers. While there is crossover between these two groups, there are still more girls who read YA-lit exclusively than read manga at all (no statistics for this, just experience). And we’re seeing that the line doesn’t really appeal to manga readers (and to be quite honest, what little manga I have read was still much better than all the Minx books, even the Janes) So right now I feel that the girls most likely to read Minx books are girls who have otaku friends who say “If there’s not any manga that appeals to you, I’ve heard of an line of American comics you might like.” So yeah, not a huge audience.

I’d probably give my friends Fortune & Glory and Scott Pilgrim to give an example of good comic books…

Never said there wouldn’t be.

There’s a false dichotomy if ever I saw one. There are plenty of non-delinquent teenagers out there who aren’t going to identify very closely with the cast of PLAIN JANES. Even the book itself regards its characters as outside the mainstream.

“Direct quote from my 13-year-old: “The characters were one-dimensional. They were tacky and they just… weren’t… cool.” Also, both gils thought the plot was kind of dumb.”

I think that’s entirely fair. Most of the characters in PLAIN JANES *are* one-dimensional, and in particular, only one of the title characters can honestly be described as rounded. And the whole theme of the book - nerdy outsiders achieve self-actualisation through forms of street art that are vaguely conceptual and definitely, absolutely, positively don’t involve graffiti - isn’t exactly an obvious winner with a mainstream teenage audience.

Seriously, if the books are finding enough of an audience to sell well, isn’t that enough? Does it matter if the people who buy it don’t match some theoretical demographic? The line is broadening the market, and from where I sit, that’s a good thing.

I appreciate Alex (great store btw), Birgid, and Danielle’s responses because despite being at odds (they’re great! they suck! I read it), at least they indicate what some teenage girls think about the books. If I was Shelly Bond, I don’t think I’d care what adult comics fans think about the books. I think I’d care about what the intended female young adult market thinks about them.

I also have a review of Clubbing in my YA column at Bookslut this month. I’m a big Andi Watson fan anyway, so this was a book I was looking forward to. I thought it was a fun mystery with a very snarky/smart heroine. I enjoyed it.

A lot of my readers are YA librarians and booksellers - they hit Bookslut looking for recommendations for titles they can pass on to their patrons and customers. Pretty much all of them are happy with Minx at least to some degree thus far and were happy to hear that Cecil is writing a sequel.

It’s very hard to gauge the success of this line - I think - because it crosses over from comic buyers to book buyers more than a lot of gn lines. Also I have to tell you I’m not sure what the heck DC is doing for marketing. I know they pushed hard at the comics fans but I had a battle to get a review copy of Janes for Bookslut and I already had the interview with Cecil lined out. You would think with the numbers that site draws in DC would have been happier to catch a few folks who might not know beans about comics but would recognize Cecil’s name. I don’t know of any YA sites at all that are getting the books to review - and it seems like this is a resource that DC should try to reach out (First Second is all over the blogs and the librarians love them - which translates into sales and readers.)