Blu Manga, an imprint of Tokyopop (and I can hear many readers saying 'oh dear' in their heads already, but let's be fair), is raising the prices on their books from $12.99 to $14.99. This puts Blu on the high end of the yaoi pricing spectrum, with most publishers continuing to price their titles at $12.99.

While I'm sure it's not easy for a specialty publisher to stay in business right now, and price increases may temporarily stave off the bills, I really question the wisdom of this move. $14.99 for a single volume of manga seems like a rip-off to me, and I'm sure many yaoi fans feel the same. It would be one thing if Blu offered some kind of special deluxe book with high quality printing, but it appears that Blu is just raising the price, period.

They may feel that they have something of a captive audience since there aren't a tremendous amount of yaoi publishers, but with the likes of Yaoi Press and Doki Doki around, fans do have a choice. There are some serious fans and collectors who will simply shrug it off and continue to buy (and of course, the begrudging fans already hooked on a particular series), but for most people who read and collect yaoi manga, a $14.99 price point is a deal breaker. Maybe this is financially naive of me, but I would think that the better strategy would be to continue building a loyal fanbase and try to make their profit back in volume- even if it didn't work, at least they wouldn't be shooting themselves in the foot by aggravating their customers.

The strip above comes courtesy of a regular comic called Yaoi Not Actually on everythingyaoi. It has now become my favorite yaoi title, and you know why? Because it's yaoi...not actually. I'm working up to reading actual yaoi.

Hey, Rome wasn't built in a day, you know?

[Via The Yaoi Review]