Would you read more if novels had manga styled covers?
Japan Probe wrote...
Concerned over flagging book sales, especially among younger age groups, publishers are having popular manga artists illustrate the covers of novels and are turning serious works of fiction into manga to be sold at convenience stores.
Such “combini novels” are proving popular among young people who are seemingly averse to conventional bookstores.
Seven-Eleven Japan Co. in May became the first major convenience store chain to put on sale revamped editions of works by three Naoki Prize-winning authors–Arimasa Osawa, Miyuki Miyabe and Natsuhiko Kyogoku.
Although none of the books are new, they have been totally repackaged, with manga artists popular with young people illustrating the front covers.
They first went on sale in mid-May at all the 4,000 or so 7-Eleven outlets in the Kanto region.
Death Note manga series creator Takeshi Obata, whose illustration last year for a new edition of Osamu Dazai’s 1948 novel Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human)–published by Shueisha Inc.–helped it become a fresh hit, drew the cover for Kyogoku’s Bara Juji Tantei I (Rosenkreuz I).
The series, branded “Paperbacks K,” came about from a collaboration between Seven-Eleven Japan and literary agency Osawa Office Inc., to which the three authors belong.
Kodansha Ltd. has published 40,000 copies, and publicized them on the Osawa Office Web site. The publisher is reportedly considering a nationwide second printing run after the autumn.