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Inside the DMG

Inside the DMG: Process, process, process (Part 1)

April 8, 2012 by MJ 40 Comments

Now that you’ve all read the saga of my second group’s adventures with a disappearing editor, I’m going to take you through the DMG process from an editor’s perspective (or at least mine). Then in part two of this article, I’ll take a look at how this process might compare with that of an industry professional.


Before signing on as an editor with the Digital Manga Guild, I had exactly no experience editing manga. While I think it’s clear that DMG’s targeted labor pool was the scanlation community (perhaps specifically the BL scanlation community), I came in with no background as either a professional or a hobbyist. With that in mind, it my be unsurprising to hear that my first major realization as a new DMG editor (with four deadlines suddenly looming near) was just how little I knew what I was doing.

My second realization was that I was really on my own. There was no managing editor to go to with questions or to catch my mistakes. There was no one to mentor me through my first manga editing job. Translated scripts were simply filling up my inbox, and I had to figure out something to do with them. It reminded me of the stereotypical theater dreams that haunted me (and every young actor) for years, in which I’d find myself opening a brand new show, though I’d never learned my lines or attended a single rehearsal. Only now, the clock was ticking and the consequences were real.

The first book I was assigned to work on (before the group’s original editor vanished completely) was Keiko Kinoshita’s A Lovely Day With Yuri Sensei. The translator on these books, Aaron, worked from raw pages to provide me with a translated script, which I then edited and (when necessary) rewrote while working side-by-side with the raws.

As an example, here’s a fairly simple, straightforward page (#163) from that manga, as delivered to us by DMG.

Aaron translated this page and put it into script format, thusly:

Another thing I learned pretty early on in this process, is that every translator scripts a little differently. While Leighann (translator on Career Gate and What? Sensei) usually makes a large number of editorial choices as she translates (inserting punctuation and so on) Aaron tends to leave those things up to the editor, only inserting things like punctuation when they are specifically included in the Japanese. Though this gives me a lot of leeway for interpretation as an editor, I actually found it pretty intimidating when working on my very first manga script. As I developed my own process, I eventually made a habit of doing an initial “punctuation pass” before looking at any other aspects of the script, so that when I came back to it for rewriting, I felt like I was standing on sturdier ground.

After doing my “punctuation pass,” my next real concern with this page was dealing with gender issues. Though the Japanese language allows for discussion of an individual person without indicating gender, we have no such luxury in English. And though using plural pronouns like “them” and “they” has certainly become part of the common vernacular, in this case, I felt that keeping those in place detracted from the impact of the scene, and that it would be much more effective if we chose a gender for Yuri-sensei’s old friend. After a brief discussion with Aaron, we concluded that given the military context coupled with Yuri’s sexuality, it was probably fair to assume that the person was male, so I chose to use male pronouns in the scene.

Next, there were a couple of sentences I wanted to clean up, just for cadence and flow.

Yuri’s lines in the second panel, “It’s one of those sappy songs they used to play before the war. Someone I knew used to sing it all the time,” felt awkward with the repetition of “used to.” Furthermore, I worried that the dialogue as a whole might be too long for the speech bubbles provided. To resolve my issue with flow (and at least help the issue of length) I rewrote the first sentence as, “It’s one of those sappy songs they played before the war.”

Even after this, I feared that both bubbles would be too crowded. In some instances, I’d have included one or two alternate versions, so that our letterer (Morgan) could choose which fit best, but in this case, I was really fond of the wording as it stood, so I decided to leave it to Morgan to let me know if further shortening/rewording was necessary. I also felt that the lines in the last panel were a bit awkward, and that they’d pack more of an emotional punch with a little simplification.

I submitted the following to the group’s letterer, Morgan:

As it turned out, Morgan was able to fit the longer lines in easily. Here is the final version we submitted to DMG:

Again, this is a fairly simple example, though it required at least one pretty drastic editorial decision on my part. Other pages might require lots of back-and-forth regarding SFX, continuity, translator’s notes, discussion of word length, background text, and so on and so forth.

Once Morgan and I have finalized each chapter, we ask the group’s second editor and letterer (and sometimes the second translator) to go through for proofreading and any other questions they may have, though it’s ultimately up to me to accept or reject their changes. I also do a final re-read of the entire finished volume before submission, at which point I may request small changes in my edited adaption, usually for the purposes of consistency or flow. It’s important to note here that because of the way DMG contracts groups on individual books, members doing proofreading only are not compensated for their work. They are doing it entirely out of the kindness of their hearts, and for the benefit of the group as a whole. We do this in an attempt to decrease the chances that our books are being released with errors (see Erica Friedman’s recent article for insight on how common these errors are). For though there is some kind of QC being done at the DMG level, the evidence isn’t especially reassuring.

While lighter, uh.. porny-er books like Career Gate and (even more so) the upcoming What? Sensei contain a lot of small, crowded panels crammed with as much dialogue, aside text, and sound effects as they can hold, as you can see from the page provided here, the Yuri Sensei books tend to be quieter and a bit more sparse overall. Though it was certainly necessary at times to rewrite sentences for space purposes in these books, I could more often focus on things like tone, cadence, and characterization. And while I was much, much more nervous about editing a (relatively) serious period piece like Yuri Sensei than I was about editing our other titles, the process was also significantly more enjoyable for me, and I found myself eager to do any research or extra work necessary to be sure I was doing right by the series.

However, and I can’t possibly stress this enough, no matter how much extra work and research I was willing to put in (and this was a lot), there was no real way for me to know if I was doing right by the series, because I simply am not qualified to do so.

Though I read a lot of period manga, my knowledge of Japanese history (including this period after World War II and the American occupation) is limited to what little I learned as an American high school student (where WWII and its aftermath are taught almost exclusively from an American point of view) plus whatever I’ve read on my own over the years (more than the average American, but far less than a real student of the period). My knowledge of Japan’s cultural history during this period is even less robust. Furthermore, my Japanese language skills are nonexistent, so regardless of whatever ability I possess as a writer and editor of English, I am not capable of supplementing what is given to me by the translator with any nuances of my own—at least none that are grounded in the original Japanese. And though, luckily, Morgan does have some background in Japanese and I have industry friends to whom I may pose questions from time-to-time, without another fluent professional overseeing our work, there is every possibility that some of my editorial decisions were just plain wrong. I’ve never been a control freak, by any means, but I’ll be honest—I found this prospect terrifying while working on these books and I still do, now that they are up for sale.

As if simply to enhance my terror, a couple of chapters in to Lovely Day, we began noticing some strange things… flashbacks to incidents we’d never seen, quoted dialogue that hadn’t appeared in the previous chapters. Eventually, as the translator worked ahead, he realized that we’d been assigned the books out of order, and that these were references to Yuri Sensei is in a Good Mood Today as Well. Though our deadlines required that we finish the books out of order (Lovely Day‘s deadline was a full month before Good Mood‘s), we requested that DMG wait to release both until Good Mood was finished, so as not to confuse readers in the same way. I still worry that editing the second book first may have caused me to miss some nuances in the text. Reading the final versions, now in order, the second book reads very differently to me than it did originally. I can only hope that I didn’t miss anything vital while editing Aaron’s scripts.


A Lovely Day With Yuri Sensei – Yuri Sensei To Itoshiki Hibi © Keiko Kinoshita. All rights reserved. Original Japanese edition published in 2009 by Taiyoh Tosho Publishing, Co., Ltd. All other material © 2012 by DIGITAL MANGA, Inc., All rights reserved.

Check back soon for part two of “Process, process, process”!

Filed Under: UNSHELVED Tagged With: digital manga guild, dmg, Inside the DMG

Inside the DMG: Getting to work!

April 2, 2012 by MJ 10 Comments

It’s been quite a while since my last installment of this feature, largely due to the fact that my DMG work itself has required a great deal of my time. Now that I’ve completed a number of my current assignments, I’d like to take the next few weeks to break down my experience, and also to look into how the Digital Manga Guild is being received so far by the online community, both members and fans.

Readers may recall that Guild members finally received contracts back in June of last year. Then in late July, after great deal of angst and discussion, the group I’d joined finally fell apart, due to the others’ reluctance to sign their DMG contracts.

Though I’m not able to get into the details of my former group’s dissolution, I can tell you that the other members’ decisions were less driven by issues with the contract itself (though these certainly were a factor) and more by an ongoing dispute with DMG management about some of the group’s qualification tests, about which they’d been given conflicting information from the start. Overall, lack of effective and accurate communication between DMG’s caretakers and its members is what killed my original group, something which continues to be an issue for the Guild (I’ll talk about that more later).

In September, I put my name back into the pool of editors without a group, though I wasn’t especially hopeful about snagging one.

Given the overwhelming number of groupless editors in the mix, I thought it likely that my own reporting was pretty much done, and with that in mind, asked the active group BLBangBang if they’d be willing to write up a report on their own experiences, since I had failed to get far enough to actually begin work. They submitted their report in early October, just a few days after I was contacted by Morgan, leader of the group Purple Prose Killers, who thankfully invited me to join her team.

Though I’d finally found a group (again), it would be a while before I’d have real work—at least that’s how things originally stood. The PPK had already received their first batch of assignments, and the work had been distributed and signed off on with the DMG. I’d get my own stuff to work on the next time around, Morgan said, and in the meantime, I offered myself up for final proofreading or anything else the group might need.

A few weeks later, it became clear that the group’s existing editor was going to have difficulty making deadlines for all three of her titles, due to some unexpected personal conflicts. I agreed to take over two of these titles (Keiko Kinoshita’s Yuri Sensei is in a Good Mood Today as Well and A Lovely Day with Yuri Sensei) to help out, though we were told by DMG that I wouldn’t be able to receive credit (or payment) for them, as the paperwork had already been signed. Since I wasn’t accepting payment anyway, I did not see this as a problem. My priority was getting some real working experience so that I could continue my report. (Also, as a big fan of Kinoshita, I’ll admit I was pretty psyched.) In the meantime, DMG assigned us an additional title “for MJto work on,” so I’d have something official to show for myself.

By the end of November, the group’s original editor was entirely MIA. In early December, she was formally removed from the group, at which point DMG agreed to redo the original paperwork so that I would officially be named as editor on all three titles.

Though I’d been working on the two titles I’d taken over, suddenly I had four books on my docket, and the first deadline (for the title I hadn’t been working on) was approaching fast! I was officially named editor on Syuko Nishimura’s Career Gate on December 6th, with a final submission deadline of January 15th. Though the original editor had completed the first chapter, I decided it would be more consistent for me to start from scratch.

Much panic ensued.

Check in next week for the next article in this series, “Process, process, process”!

Filed Under: UNSHELVED Tagged With: digital manga guild, dmg, Inside the DMG

Inside the DMG: BoysLoveBangBang

October 8, 2011 by BoysLoveBangBang 8 Comments

Editor’s note: While my own DMG experience has been stalled due to the disintegration of my localizing group (soon to be restarted, more on this soon!), the active group BoysLoveBangBang has agreed to share with us their Guild experience! Thanks, BLBangBang! – MJ


BoysLoveBangBang: Our Digital Manga Guild Experience

When I’m excited, my thoughts bubble up, suddenly exploding en masse. The result? Reader confusion. Today, not only am I excited about Digital Manga Publishing’s (DMP) unprecedented business model, the Digital Manga Guild (DMG), but I also want to share my personal experience so far with my localizing team, BoysLoveBangBang, and DMG. So, I’m gonna strap on the leather restraints and divide this journey into four categories: group formation; DMG interaction; the working process; and group interaction and beliefs.

Group Formation

BoysLoveBangBang, or the shortened version BLBangBang, was not without its set up discouragements, both from DMG itself and from within our group.

After announcing their—somewhat vague—comic guild idea, DMG needed time to define both their potential and procedures before attempting to clear the air for everyone interested in joining the guild. Understandable, but incredibly frustrating! Here was a brave and exciting promise: one that demonstrated awareness and appreciation of fan motivation and wanted to work with the long proven power of active enthusiasts!

Our original group members were all part of the experimental first wave of people applying to DMG. After submitting our qualifying tests, we had a considerable wait. I reread my grammar and style books and went through three shelves of my favourite manga before our individual approvals were completed and our members were linked. Finally, we were sent our contracts; BLBangBang put on its serious hat for contract discussions and group planning.

Next queue: DMG requires each member to send in their contract as a hard copy. Combined, our contracts flew over waving whitecaps, trucked down dusty roads, and weaved through rocky escarpment forests. DMG staff had to reunite all these lonely contracts into the BLBangBang family before any project assignments. Yup. Tick tock. We were ready for any genre, any mangaka–we just wanted to help with quality English manga availability.

We had trouble firming up our group roles. For a spell, we even had no translator. (Sounds kinda dismal so far, no?) We were saddened, but in comparison to setting up even the most conventional of new businesses, BLBangBang’s formation and partnership with DMG was bliss–full of eager people from both parties and reasonably smooth transitions. Oh yes, and a bit of luck…

This autumn, Apricotsushi, our translator, landed in our laps with a deliciously alluring squeal, and we gelled into who we are today: a fun-spirited, supportive, working team of: Alexandra Gunawan (Al), our group leader and letterer from the United States; Kimberly Lammens (Dutchie), our editor from Canada; and Anne Whittingham (Apricotsushi), our translator from Australia.

During our period sans translator, Al didn’t bow to Lady Luck; rather, she kept vigilant herself. When DMG offered a special project–a single title, already translated–she swiftly thrust herself up, and, over the sound of her chair clattering to the floor, she screeched happily: “PICK US! PICK US!” This project was Healing Music by Kaiya Tatsumi; it proved positively perfect for us. Not only did it breath fire back into our dampened spirits, but it also allowed us to learn the pitch and tone for our unique BLBangBang procedure.

Healing Music gave us clarity toward: our roles as editor and letterer; our needs regarding our new translator; and finally, our expectations of DMG. With the arrival of our first full package of three titles–Tweeting Love Birds volumes one and two by Yamamoto Kotetsuko and Want to Depend on You by Kinoshita Keiko–we’re now go-go-go, like a wild seme on an unsuspecting uke. Rawr! We’re approaching our three new titles with confidence, but we’re open to strengthening our fresh procedure with the addition of Apricotsushi!

DMG Interaction

Interaction with DMG holds two components: direct emails between BLBangBang and DMG; and the bimonthly teleconferences between DMG and the localizing group collective.

Direct Interaction

Al, our go-between for DMG and BLBangBang, gathers any questions or concerns, such as security issues, or technical and procedural problems, and sends them off pronto. At first, DMG’s responses, although still professional and friendly, retained a “slow and vague” modus operandi. Thankfully, that was short-lived. DMG administrators are now excellent, in both efficiency and clarity; they respond with reasonable promptness and satisfactory, respectful answers.

Al says: Group leaders must stay proactive in communication and follow up with DMG. If an email is sent that requires DMG response, I make sure I get it. It’s easy to get lost in DMG’s shuffle, so finding ways to politely assert and reassert our team’s agenda has been paramount. As group leader, it’s also been important to anticipate the paperwork DMG sends us. For example, the bundle of Schedule As we expected to receive following Healing Music was lost in a computer glitch on DMG’s end. If I hadn’t followed up immediately with our DMG contact when that email went astray, BLBangBang would have looked rather negligent!

Teleconferences

When DMG decided to maintain a regular time allotment for a live exchange with their localizers, I was pleased. We took turns listening in, working around our personal needs. At the conclusion of each meeting, the minutes would be shared with the rest of the group. Teleconferences were a useful channel at the beginning—it was a forum for DMG to share business information and status updates, and for localizers to raise concerns and questions. Perhaps because we started with DMG from the beginning, the teleconferences dwindled from useful to irritating repetition.

Encouragingly, DMG recently announced that they are holding themed teleconferences now. What a relief! With this focusing agenda and DMG’s growing activity, we’re returning to the live meetings with renewed interest.

The Working Process

The general procedures provided by DMG, although comprehensive, are somewhat tedious and disorganized from my perspective. “Wah!” I thought, rubbing my bleeding eyes and saying, “Calm down; type up your own version. You can own this monster!” And voila–a checklist that includes all of DMG’s fairly exacting requirements but now reshaped into my eye-friendly standards!

Onward to the project itself!

Roles

Apricotsushi is transforming Tweeting Love Birds from Japanese to English as I type! I’m willing myself to patience. I don’t want to be that child who whines: “Are we there yet?” Well done translations are not rushed translations–please ignore this brat, Apricotsushi!

I whip the script into shape and then fine tune it some more: a semi colon added here, a conversion to active tense there, and… would an em-dash clarify this dialogue, make it more expressive…? Add insightful team discussions on image-word flow choices and various translations we wish to grasp better in order to deliver smoother, and we finally arrive at the polished version of the script.

Al has enormous image and font files to juggle and manipulate. She does marvelously, with nary a complaint (that isn’t slathered in funny). Each project is going to be different: she informed me with a happy tinkle in her voice that the Japanese files for Healing Music were wonderfully sharp and mostly clean, but then she harrumphed, stating that the files for Tweeting Love Birds must be coaxed into submission with a lot of patience. I feel technical skills are not the only part of her lettering work; she’s also handles many aesthetic judgments.

After several quality checks for each chapter, the whole team is happy with the comic’s English flow and look.

Technology

Each localizing group has varying technological resources—hardware, operating systems, software–and varying ways they utilize their resources. For me, an agonizing death would await me without my two monitor set up: I read the translated script while looking at the Japanese images, making sure nothing is missing and all the image-word choices jive effectively; later, I view the cleaned and edited images at the same time as I type up quality control comments. As for my hardware, at first, my computer blew up when I tried to shove too much at it (those beautiful but beleaguering image files!). I may be old, but I can recognize the sound of a computer’s processor weeping: “Please stop. It hurts.” Being an anger management graduate, I stopped. My operation is now well-oiled: I only open one or two programs with one or two files displayed at a time.

Al: Uploads of updated files are done!
Dutchie: And they’ve begun their race to download into my computer! (“Race” may be the wrong word.” -_-)

Downloads and uploads on DMG’s FTP server are often s-l-o-w, but with our “rolling” procedure, all of us are constantly productive.

Finding Our Look

More than half way through Healing Music, we realized–after taking a look at how the manga files displayed on a variety of portable devices–that the font we were using was too small. We wisely talked it over, keeping our sailor curses to a minimum. With what I imagine was a charmingly profane gesture, Al finally huffed, “No problem—I’m fixing the files NAO.” (She later clarified: “It was less profane gestures and more irritated mouse smashing.”) I did my quality checks once again, and there you have it! Trés dramatic improvement! Trouble to worth ratio? Immeasurable!

Before we sent the final project in, we both read it from beginning to end once more. I tweaked style and grammar flow and made sure nothing was amiss. Al decided to stun me at the last minute: she took some of the artful Japanese sound effects and made her English subtitles into striking mimics!

As soon as the last page of Healing Music transferred into DMG’s final submissions folder, nervousness assailed me. My focus has long been researching and writing about the comic form and comic history–I’ve never actually helped a comic come to life! We had made quite a few independent choices and, although I firmly believed in the quality of our final work, I also hoped that our seniors in the comic industry would look on it with approval. We didn’t wait long for a response: production sent us a couple critiques to consider for next time; and both DMP and DMG representatives sent us encouraging words on the professionalism of our work and our ability to meet DMG’s high standards. After this fantastic feedback, I’m inspired and reinvigorated for our next project!

Less than two weeks after we finished our English version of Kaiya Tatsumi’s Healing Music, it’s a wonderful feeling to see it flashed about on DMP’s websites, and especially on emanga.com itself. (Kindle and Nook versions will be available mid to late November.)

Group Beliefs and Interaction

Al: . . . idk we could use “pervert” –is that less powerful of a word to you than “slut”?
Dutchie: . . . I dunno, but it’s just so RANDOM in the scene. No lead up and BLAM! Especially shocking word choice for this cute set of innocent lovers…
Dutchie: Uke’s eyes would be more like @_@ or T_T
Al: >_< yeah. It's pretty bad.
Dutchie: I’m sure the smexy times would be flat lined. LOL
Al: LOL poor limp dick

The above conversation regarding an extra story at the end of Healing Music may seem like an inessential, crass conversation, but it’s not. For all titles, as we absorb the characters, wishing to reflect the mangaka’s intent, we figure out what sort of flow is required. From the smallest “haa” to the biggest “smash,” we try to consider the impact of all the available choices. (I’ll let you know how that particular conversation turned out!)

Beliefs

All three of us have careers and/or are pursuing academic studies in addition to our DMG activities. We also have families that include long term partners. My partner, although not fully initiated in the esoteric world of self lubricating… erm… manga, is supportive of my passion and also technologically savvy, so that’s a boon for me! Al’s partner is… wondering how the hell she spent over $3,000 on manga so far this year. (Just wait until Yaoi Con…) Apricotsushi’s partner has her back, too!

We’re treating BoysLoveBangBang as if we’ve formed a small business together—as indeed we have from one perspective. It’s hard to find the right terms to use with DMG’s new business model. It’s a liminal place, for sure, but out of scary change often comes enrichment.

Everything we do we take seriously: from maintaining the comic’s artistic integrity, accuracy, tone and aesthetics to respecting one another. Each of us feels we are part of a whole; although we have individual roles to perform, we don’t “own” any one part of the process. This results in a solid piece! From the book blurb to the emotional impact of the polished final pages, we’re in it together.

Interaction

Groups operate best with tight communication between members, including awareness of each member’s personal life commitments. What else is involved in communicating? A heck of a lot of fortifying affirmation, constructive criticism, honesty, and humour.

Because we are not within a tangible distance of one another, and operate entirely over the internet, we’ve shared our personal contact information and set up a back-up emergency procedure. We use regular emails, Twitters, and scheduled Skype meetings (sometimes even with an agenda!) to connect.

Al has tackled the social networking and promotion for BLBangBang like a football star, utilizing both Twitter and Tumblr to add pretty colour and important information to our lives on a daily basis. Apricotsushi efficiently set BLBangBang up with a new Facebook page. What does Dutchie do? Blabs. Excessively and explosively.

We want to know what you’re thinking and talking about too! After all, this is a community effort, so why not chat with us! We can support one another, either as fellow localizers or simply as comic appreciators. In celebration of our first DMG release, we just had a manga giveaway. We’re planning more giveaways and other fun events! Please follow us at any of these sites!

And here’s the condensed conclusion to our completely practical, somewhat sensational, dirty talk discussion:

Al: “Dirty slut” may brain the readers. . . basically the Japanese literally says “[uke name] really erotic” and then “[seme name] is more erotic.”
Dutchie: So, they’re playfully arguing about who is more “ero.” “Dirty slut” replacement: “No, you’re the erotic/passionate/sensual one.”
Al: Preference?
Dutchie: Hmm. The seme is like an eager puppy… Passionate? Wait. Let me just go check the dictionary…
Dutchie: Passionate: “easily aroused or ruled by intense emotions.” We done step right, boy.
Al: ha ha –with a brofist!

Later…

Al: We’re done! Now I can start cleaning up the next one,Tweeting Love Birds! It’s been deadly! lol kiss kiss

Now, lifting my glass of sake, I make two toasts: first, to all localizers and DMG — may we continue striving for accomplished titles and effective guild dynamics, never forgetting our enjoyment that puts sparkle into everything; and second, to my fellow comic enthusiasts – may you all find comics that connect with your hearts and minds, regardless if you read them via traditional formats or this new, exciting electronic format!

Filed Under: FEATURES Tagged With: digital manga guild, dmg, Inside the DMG

Inside the DMG, Week 19

June 8, 2011 by MJ 9 Comments

It’s been a long time since I had anything to say about my experience with the Digital Manga Guild—eleven weeks, actually, since my last update. Now, at long last, I can report that members of approved groups have received their contracts, with instructions to sign and return them to Digital Manga headquarters.

I received my contract last Friday, June 3rd, and took some time to look at it over the weekend. It’s a lengthy document, and while confidentiality requests prevent me from revealing its specifics, there are a few general comments I can share.

First of all, aside from some pretty standard sections of legalese which may be unfamiliar to those who don’t work with contracts regularly, there isn’t much that will be surprising to those who have been following along with discussion in the DMG forums or recordings of the original teleconferences with DMP President, Hikaru Sasahara. The picture he’s painted publicly of his vision for the Guild is very much in line with what appears in the official contract, including some of the fuzziness of that vision.

One issue in particular that remains unclear, even after distribution of the contracts, is exactly how much work any group will be expected to produce over a specific period of time. While the contract lays out expectations in terms of meeting deadlines and so on, there’s not much clarification on exactly how much work is being ultimately agreed to, which may be a real problem for localizers trying to determine whether they can commit to the arrangement. While Sasahara and DMP have been clear from the start that this new system can’t provide payment up front, localizers seeking to manage their time in order to ensure that they can maintain the work that currently pays their bills may find this lack of clarity unhelpful, to say the least. ETA: a DMP representative has posted some clarification on this question in the DMG forums.

Another point that seems unclear is whether Guild members have recourse if they object to any of the contract’s terms, aside from simply quitting the Guild. Now, I don’t work in publishing, but aside from my experiences with union contracts (which have already been heavily negotiated before they reach members), in my line of work, I’ve never offered (or been offered) a contract for work, even one I considered standard, without expecting that there might be questions and at least some level of negotiation on any questionable or undesirable terms. While DMP is clearly open to questions (rumor tells me that some members who have had multiple issues are being encouraged to bring them to a teleconference), it remains to be seen whether they are open to changes on an individual basis or whether this is an all-or-nothing offering.

Contract aside, however, it seems that the biggest issue muddying the DMG waters these days is inconsistency in information, something that has been a problem since the beginning. For instance, member dashboards were recently updated to include information indicating which tests each member has taken, and of those, which were passed or failed. This is terrific, but word in the forums is that what some people are seeing does not jive with the original pass/fail e-mails they received, especially since we were all explicitly told by company representatives (as is still stated in the Guild FAQ) that receiving a “pass” e-mail indicated that we’d passed all positions we tested for.

To quote the FAQ: “Q. I got my acceptance email and I took more than one test. Which position is it for? A. It’s for every position that you sent your test in for. The same goes for a group, if a group leader receives in email it’s in regards to everyone.”

With members suddenly finding out that they have not passed tests they were originally told they passed, I think the greatest challenge now for DMP, in terms of attracting more members and keeping the ones they have, is inspiring confidence that they have the organizational structure needed to really pull this off. This is an ambitious project to say the least, and while it’s understood that the Guild is somewhat a work in progress, it’s going to be important that members feel they’re in competent hands.

So with all that in mind, am I signing my contract? Yes, I am.

And onward we go.


Readers, please feel free to ask any questions you like. I will answer anything I can without violating the confidentiality I’ve agreed to.

Filed Under: UNSHELVED Tagged With: digital manga guild, dmg, Inside the DMG

Inside the DMG, Week 8

March 22, 2011 by MJ 3 Comments

Actually, “Inside the DMG” is a misleading title, since there has been little action on that front since last month’s teleconferences. As members wait for their contracts (perhaps forthcoming in the next couple of weeks), most have been reluctant to ask too many questions, even on the Guild’s message boards. With DMP President Hikaru Sasahara visiting crisis-stricken Japan, the general sense around the forums has been very much wait-and-see.

That said, yesterday’s press release from the company suggests that its President has been hard at work overseas! Check out the full text below:


Gardena, CA (March 21, 2011) – Digital Manga is excited to announce the first acquisition of 487 titles from Japanese publishers for the Digital Manga Guild (DMG). That number is expected to grow exponentially, as publishers have shown an increased interest within the past few weeks to be a part of DMG.

While the names of the publishers must still be kept under wraps, the growing amount of titles has astounded everyone at Digital Manga Publishing (DMP). In addition, the genres have varied between yaoi, shojo, josei, and seinen, with more to come. DMG has been President Sasahara’s personal project over the past years, as he sought a new way to produce more titles quickly for manga fans. The Guild finally came to fruition in October of last year under the DMP umbrella, and has steadily grown with over 1,100 members joining to take part in this manga community initiative. With their help, DMG promises to be a guaranteed success.

The titles keep rolling in from Japan, further establishing the Digital Manga Guild as a serious business changing the way manga will be localized.


Personally, I’m a fan of the new counter graphic, which very much illustrates the vision presented to us all by Mr. Sasahara in the teleconferences (both of which can now be downloaded from the Guild’s main page).

Meanwhile, we continue in “wait and see” mode. I hope to be reporting on contracts in the very near future, and perhaps even on what’s next for the beta groups!

Filed Under: UNSHELVED Tagged With: digital manga guild, digital manga publishing, dmg, Inside the DMG

Inside the DMG: Week 5

March 1, 2011 by MJ 9 Comments

In an otherwise quiet period at the Digital Manga Guild, the past week’s highlight for participants was a set of teleconferences with Digital Manga President and CEO Hikaru Sasahara. Guild members were invited to submit one question each for either of the two scheduled teleconferences (Friday, 2/25 at 3pm PST or Saturday, 2/26 at 11am PST), with the understanding that not all could be selected to attend.

As the teleconference dates approached, participants experienced some of the same kinds of glitches we’ve become accustomed to during this process, and which have certainly been a factor in the overall sense that DMP does not have their act together regarding the Guild. Notifications came a day later than promised, at which point some members received duplicate or conflicting information (my e-mail, for example, invited me to attend on Friday the 26th) or, in some reported cases, no notification at all.

Despite these glitches, however, the teleconferences were, in my view, the best idea Digital Manga has had to date in terms of nurturing member interest in the project, thanks largely to the obvious passion and dedication of Mr. Sasahara.

I entered Saturday’s teleconference a few minutes late (thanks to some technical difficulties of my own), missing most introductions of other attending members as well as attending staff, but Digital Manga employees who spoke up during the conference included VP of Production Fred Lui and Lanny Liu (aka starlightmuse on the DMG boards). Though we’ve heard Mr. Sasahara talk before about his plans for the Guild in the video posted on the main DMG page, the teleconference offered him a unique opportunity to convey his deep feelings for the project directly to its participants–an opportunity he leapt at with vigor.

With introductions completed, Mr. Sasahara took the floor to tell us about himself, the dreams he inherited from his father, his journey to the US forty years ago, and “the biggest and most serious project” of his career–the Digital Manga Guild. Another participant has posted a rough transcript of Saturday’s conference, but words alone can’t do justice to the passion and seriousness of Mr. Sasahara’s tone, which I found personally inspiring. Whether the manga industry as a whole will benefit from Mr. Sasahara’s intent to revolutionize the system remains to be seen, but it’s difficult to imagine that anyone attending the teleconference could have remained unmoved by his sincerity. I suspect no small number of us might have marched into the streets with promotional pamphlets and DMG flags, had we been asked to do so at the time, his fervor was that stirring.

Powerful rhetoric aside, between Mr. Sasahara’s opening remarks and the questions asked later by participants, quite a bit of good information came out of the conference. Here are a few particularly enlightening points:

  • Digital Manga has 100 titles already offered up by one of their participating publishers, some of which may be available for groups to work on as early as the end of March.
  • Though distribution of profit among the three participating entities (Japanese publishers, DMP, & localizers) is yet to be finalized, Sasahara is pushing for something in the neighborhood of 12% for localizing groups.
  • Some initial goals in terms of timeline: contracts signed by end of March; production starting in April; first titles to launch by early summer.
  • Packages for groups will be mixed (yaoi, adult titles, classic titles, etc.) with a view towards giving them equal value in terms of potential sales. Distribution of packages will be determined by DMP.
  • Accounting will be completely transparent. Groups will receive regular statements listing how many times each of their titles has been read on each applicable platform (eManga, Kindle, etc.), and what the group’s percentage is from each sale.
  • Though there will be some general guidelines offered up by DMP, localizers will be able to make most decisions in terms of things like honorifics and translation notes based on their own experiences as manga fans, and at their own discretion.
  • Localizers will decide how they wish to be credited on each of the titles they work on.

Mr. Sasahara emphasized over and over throughout the teleconference that the localizers are an incredibly important part of the process, and that he wants us to make money.

DMP representatives have indicated that a recording and/or transcript of the teleconferences will be made available to all, and I recommend that everyone take advantage of that when the time comes. Meanwhile, check out this thread at the DMG boards for detailed notes from those who attended!

ETA: These recordings are now available!


Anyone else who attended have thoughts to share? Any questions I may not have answered completely? Let me know in comments!

Filed Under: UNSHELVED Tagged With: digital manga guild, Inside the DMG

Inside the DMG: Week 3

February 17, 2011 by MJ 4 Comments

This post is on the late side, mainly because there has been relatively little action inside the DMG over the past week.

Though the group I’m now a part of has been chosen as one of the Guild’s beta groups, no further information has been passed on to our group leader in terms of timeline or procedure. It would seem that we’re back in waiting mode, which, from where I’m sitting, seems to be the single greatest morale issue the DMG has created for itself. After an (understandably) lengthy wait for test results, the burst of momentum brought on by that announcement is already fading in the wake of little new information for those who have passed their tests and formed groups.

One potential oasis in the desert of waiting is the Guild’s upcoming set of teleconferences, in which DMP president Hikaru Sasahara will answer a number of pre-screened questions from new Guild members. Attendance is limited, and though invitations have gone out to those who passed, only a small number will be chosen to participate in one of the two scheduled conferences.

With so many questions yet unanswered, it’s difficult to know what is most important to ask. What questions do you most want answered? Leave your most burning questions in comments to this post, and I’ll pick one for my teleconference sign-up. Though I can’t guarantee I’ll be chosen to attend, I’ll do my best to ask the most compelling question you’ve got! We have been told that a transcript of the conferences will be made available for all not in attendance.

Teleconference sign-ups are only open until Monday, so pass your questions to me ASAP!

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Inside the DMG: Week 2

February 8, 2011 by MJ 16 Comments

Tuesday means it’s time to share my weekly report on the Digital Manga Guild, Digital Manga Publishing’s new, community-based publishing experiment. As I explained in a post last week, I’ve joined the Guild as an inside reporter (with DMP’s consent) in order to give potential participants a chance to see what membership really entails before deciding whether to take the plunge.


Last week, I was notified that I passed my editor’s test and that I needed to become part of a group containing at least one officially accepted translator and typesetter in order to be able to work on any manga. I could do this by either joining up with other accepted individuals, or becoming part of an already-established group.

The DMG forums immediately began to fill up with posts from individual editors (and to a lesser extent, typesetters) seeking to form groups, at which point it became apparent that success was unlikely for a large number of newly-accepted members. With translators at a premium, the tone became pretty desperate, and the groupless began asking for assistance from DMP to help resolve their situation. A comment early on from DMP representative starlightmuse indicated that they might have some plan for addressing the situation, but aside from the creation of a new set of search threads, they’ve since made it clear in the updated FAQ that they “will not be taking part in forming groups in any way.”

At this point, it seems likely that a great many editors and typesetters are doomed to remain groupless, and it’s quite telling that of the new group-formation threads, the one entitled “Translators Looking to Join a Group” currently contains no replies at all. Some relief may arrive in the form of latecomers to the testing, as the updated FAQ indicates that there have been new applicants with yet ungraded tests, as well as a group of early applicants who will be taking a second test sometime this month. Of course, there’s every chance that the new tests will simply create more groupless editors, but only time will tell. On the upside, group participation is apparently fluid, and it’s been made clear that individuals are free to work with as many groups as they like, so translators looking to maximize their output and earning potential should find plenty of folks eager to work with them.

Given the general circumstances for individual editors, I must admit I’ve been extremely lucky. Not long after I posted my own little ad in the original group search forum, I was contacted by the leader of an already-established group, asking me to join as long as I could satisfy the group’s privacy concerns. Since I was immediately impressed by the leader’s management style and thoughtful self-expression, I eagerly agreed!

I will not be the only editor in the group, and indeed every role is covered by at least two people, which should allow us to work concurrently on a number of titles while accommodating its members’ busy schedules. Happily, too, the group has been chosen as one of the Guild’s beta groups, so we’ll be working with DMP on the first batch of titles, in order to help them identify any problems with their process. What this means for readers, of course, is that I’ll be able to report on the Guild’s inner workings from the get-go, which I hope might be enlightening for all.

Some of the questions brought up in comments to last week’s post have since been addressed (at least in part) in the Guild’s updated FAQ, particularly those about payment and taxes, though there is still quite a bit up-in-the-air there. When I have real facts to report on those issues, rest assured I will do so.


Signing out for this week! Please feel free to ask questions in comments to this post, and tune in next Tuesday for more!

Filed Under: DAILY CHATTER, UNSHELVED Tagged With: digital manga guild, Inside the DMG

Enter the Digital Manga Guild

February 1, 2011 by MJ 31 Comments

Back in November, I posted a quick blog entry about the Digital Manga Guild, asking readers what they thought of its pretty radical proposal. Not unsurprisingly, much of the response was wary. Prospective participants were unwilling to trust an untested system with admittedly sketchy details on things like process and payment.

With that in mind, I contacted the folks at Digital Manga Publishing to ask how they’d feel about having someone report from the inside. I proposed that I sign up and take the editor’s test, and if I passed, I’d enter the Guild as both a participant and a journalist, reporting my experiences at Manga Bookshelf, so that prospective Guild members could get a real feel for how the Guild works, where the kinks are, and how the process might evolve during its debut run. To their credit, DMP was very enthusiastic about my proposal, and eager to hear any feedback I might have for them along the way. They also gave me the go-ahead to reveal anything about the Guild I felt necessary, including details like payment.

Last night, I received notification that I passed the editor’s test, so I guess it’s time to begin! I have three important notes before going forward. First, in order to report accurately, I must treat my participation as seriously as anyone else going in. So I’ll be approaching the DMG as a job with hard deadlines and high standards. Secondly, as a journalist, I feel it would be inappropriate for me to accept payment from DMG, so anything I personally make on the job will be donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. And lastly, I want to assure any participants who end up working with me that I will never reveal their names in my reports, and that my intention is to report on the Guild and not them.

Unsure if I’d be going forward until I received the results of my test, I took a few notes along the way. We’ll start with those here, with more detailed reports to come as my experience really gets underway.


11/4/10 – Just submitted my pre-registration. The process was easy, though the information requested seems sparse. Since I’ve never edited manga before, I submitted links to my own website, with a bit of discussion on other writing and editing I’ve done. From the form, I get little sense of how much experience they’re really looking for, or if the only thing that really matters is the upcoming test. Time will tell.

11/9/10 – Submitted my editor’s test. Had a little trouble uploading, because the file format the test was delivered in is not one of the formats accepted by their uploader. The webpage promises I’ll be contacted “shortly” but discussion on the forums reveals that they have a high volume of submissions & it might take a while. It might be nice to have a little more clarity on this subject. Also confusing, they are asking people who registered as individuals to form groups on their own, even though we haven’t found out yet if we’ve passed the test. This seems backwards.

1/31/11 – Received notice of acceptance into the Guild!

Dear MJ,

Thank you for taking the test, and for your patience in our grading. We are happy to let you know that you have passed the test, and welcome you to the Digital Manga Guild! If you haven’t already, please begin forming a group of at least three (typesetter, editor, and translator) and choosing one member to be your representative. The group representative will handle all communication, projects, and payments, so choose wisely! Feel free to visit our forums (http://www.digitalmanga.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=56) to find other group members. We will be contacting you very soon with the next step, including more details on a Q&A teleconference in mid-February with our President and agreement forms. Congratulations and welcome to the Guild!

Sincerely,
Digital Manga Publishing


My next step is to try to find myself a group. Most of the groupless have gathered in this thread at the DMG forum to introduce themselves and spell out their experience. It’s immediately apparent that there are more homeless editors than anything else, so we may have some difficulty each finding a place. With this in mind, my initial feedback to DMG is that I think some of the groupless editors feel a bit lost at this point. Understanding that the DMP staff is pretty swamped, I hope they’ll be able to provide a little moderation and assistance should things get dicey for groupless participants.

I’ll be posting my credentials over there along with the rest. Anyone want to join up with me? Please let me know!

More updates to come!

ETA: I’ve (sort of, maybe definitely) been invited to a group! More on this in the next installment!

Filed Under: UNSHELVED Tagged With: digital manga guild, Inside the DMG

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