Let’s take a quick, snapshot look at the state of the industry, shall we?

[ooooo… messy…]

…but even with some unanswered questions about who is going to be publishing the manga in a year or two (with all these stupid rumors, and corporate shuffling, and bad news for retail and the economy, and digital and OEL and shrinking shelf space and dogs & cats living together — mass hysteria) it doesn’t change the fact that there are a lot of books already in the pipe, and while the firehose may finally have been turned off, even more books are still going to be brought to market.

Each site has their own definition of what constitutes a manga book, but here are their total numbers in the category as of last week:

borders 7765
b&n 5848
amazon 16951
chapters 4105
bamm 7395
buy 7230
powells 6697
virgin 9711

Quite a range; How much manga is there, really? Amazon is way off the mark because their manga category includes books in Spanish, library edition hardcovers, Japanese imports, and quite a few things that aren’t even comics, let alone manga. Chapters is at the low end, but they’re Canadian, eh. I’m much more likely to take the B&N number (or even a bit less) because there are out-of-print books lurking in every sites’ manga listings, but there are also new releases every week, and some out-of-print titles may be headed for a reprint — or the sales history and cultural value of the book are worth looking at anyway even if you can’t buy it at the moment.

Let’s call it at 7500, because that makes the math easy.

As a fan, all I can think is, Wow, that’s a lot of manga. So far to go yet… Maybe if I cut back on food…

As a retailer though, there are different questions. What do you stock? Which titles are selling? Oh sure, if you have a decent manga section and you’ve been at it for a while, you can track your own sales, or even ask your customers. That’ll only take you so far, though — What kind of consideration can you give to something you’ve never even heard of? Are all the volumes in that series selling, or is it only worthwhile to stock the new ones? Or the first four and the most recent one? Or maybe just the Duelist but not the other Yu-gi-oh titles?

Sure, stock Dragon Ball. That’s easy. But is there any way to compare Dragon Drive to Dragon Eye to Dragon Head to Dragon Sister to Dragon Knights?

Not yet. I’m working on it.

One of the things that occurred to me six weeks ago is that even the weekly top 500 manga wasn’t enough — particularly with Bleach/Naruto/Death Note tying up so much real estate at the top of the rankings.

I needed a bigger sample. I needed more data. So starting in mid-May, I got it.

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At the bottom of each weekly rankings post I list the date & time that I check each of the sales sites. I know you folks missed it, or looked right over it. That post looks something like this:

1amazon (300+200) loaded 10 Jun 21:00
1b&n (300) loaded 10 Jun 21:10
1borders (300+100) loaded 10 Jun 21:15
2b&n (300+100) loaded 12 Jun 14:30
2borders (300+200) loaded 12 Jun 14:35
2amazon (300) loaded 12 Jun 14:40
2amzn-hourly (100) loaded 13 Jun 01:05
3amazon (300+100) loaded 13 Jun 19:50
3b&n (300+200) loaded 14 Jun 12:45
3borders (300) loaded 14 Jun 14:20

I’ve told you before that I load up a site out to its top 300 manga, start assigning points, and this (along with data from nine other sites) is where the Manga 500 chart comes from.

And then… and then there’s this new stuff after the plus sign:

I wanted more data. But I didn’t feel like completely re-balancing the charts and rebuilding the spreadsheets and formulas from scratch.

I did everything the same as before, but when I got out to #300 on Average Sales Site B, I just… kept going. The extra data entry is spread out, so the time investment is minimal, and each additional title only scores a point. In a single week, it doesn’t do anything. The only thing I did was set up a hundred-way tie for last place. (and then a 200-way tie — in for a penny, in for 14 stone.)

Dead last doesn’t get you anywhere. But say a volume shows up in last place twice a week. On all three sites. For six weeks running.

All of a sudden it adds up to something. And say all seven or eight volumes of a title are hanging out just below the bottom of the chart. (and now, all tied for last place.) IF this is the case, then it is definitely something I’d like track, and try to include in some kind of list.

It’d have to be a damn big list.

2500 titles or so

Maybe even 2707 individual manga volumes. –Oh hey, it looks like some sucker has already compiled the data for us. Poor dumb bastard.

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So that’s what we’re looking at in the big damn list.
- That’s the new methodology (an extra 900 listings weekly on top of the data used to compile the Manga 500; it’s not just a rehash/tally of the individual weeks)
- and the rationale: This is not about Number One, this really is about the backlist.
- and this isn’t about a chart: My Data Is Now Your Data. I posted a complete list (and more, see below) from Death Note #1 on down to Yaoi Hentai Anthology 4 and Neon Genesis Evangelion manga from 2004.

But a list that big is too much to take in all at once, particularly in a plain-text file. It’s not just the size, as there are a number of ways to look at the data: by volume, by series, by publisher, by publication date…

I hate to say it, but if you want to get a feel for the data set, or get any utility from it, you’re going to have to download the spreadsheet.
I’m trying to make it easy on you. Here’s how to download it: Head on over to this file download page on Archive.org. It’s an xls (Excel) file. Not that I use excel — I’m a proponent of OpenOffice.org’s Calc, but Calc handles excel files just fine so I went with the so-called standard. (the xls is down near the bottom of the page, under the “Other Files” heading, it’s named 08 Q2 Spring manga chart.)

This particular file has five sheets. First up is ‘by fifths’, which is the data as posted to the blog yesterday. The next three tabs sort the same list by Volume, Series, and Publisher, rather than my crude division into quintiles. The final sheet is the raw data — in this case the score each volume had each week (as and if it appeared in sources).

That really is the Raw data, typos and all. But if you want it, or just want to page through it– sure, go ahead.

The publishers’ scorecard is fairly interesting to page through, too. Tokyopop is about a quarter of the list, for example, and Viz (all variants) makes up more than a third –but only a third, there are quite a few other books out there.

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So, it’s not just a quarterly summary. Hell, if nothing else, I’ve just handed you a database of titles: the top third of all published manga titles as proven by online sales, with the tools to sort this in all kinds of ways (provided you know how to drive a spreadsheet program) and backed up by my own version of sales data.

(it’s only comparative data, not hard sales numbers, but unless you’re offering to email me Bookscan numbers each week I don’t want to hear any complaints.)

That’s the Big Damn List. Ignore the text in the last post (ignore most of this post) and go introduce yourself to the data and spreadsheet. I’ll be switching back to the charts and the usual format for the day-to-day, week-to-week postings, but I’ll have another even larger Backlist post for you in 13 weeks. See you on the Equinox.