Broccoli Books Blog

Hello, blogger Shiz here.

I sent small packages of promo goods to the following libraries.
If you want any of the stuff, please go visit them.

Aina Haina Public Library (Honolulu, HI)
Cook Memorial Public Library (Libertyville, IL)
Cumberland County Public Library (Fayetteville, NC)
Mililani Public Library (Mililani, HI)
Mineola Memorial Library (Mineola, NY)
Pasadena Public Library (Pasadena, CA)
Providence Public Library (Providence, RI)
Richton Park Library (Richton Park, IL)
USAFA Base Library (CO)
Zearing Public Library (Zearing, IA)

Mostly stickers (E’S, Kon Kon Kokon, My Dearest Devil Princess, etc), Juvenile Orion keychains, Piyoko figures & various Di Gi Charat things.

Enjoy!

I’ll pack up more stuff next week.
If your local library isn’t on the list, have the youth librarian email pr(at)bro-usa.com with the subject line “Broccoli Books Promo Goods.”

PS. I’ve received over 50 emails requesting promo goods. Right now I’m prioritizing libraries because the US Postal System has a lovely thing called “library mail” which lets you send packages to libraries and schools at a lower cost.

PPS. If you’re not an officer of an anime club, please don’t email w/ requests.

Here are some questions I received in the last few weeks.
I don’t have a lot of good news for most of you… sorry about that.

If you have any other questions, please email editor(at)broccolibooks.com.

* * * *
Q. I’m wondering whether Sola volume two is out yet. If not, when will it be released?

A. sola vol 2 has not been released, and will not be released by Broccoli Books.

Q. Titles Such as Galaxy Angel II and Disgaea II, What is going to happen to the remaining volumes? Are they going to end where they left off, and leave it’s readers in the dark, or is there still hope for these titles being released to the very end? Being a faithful reader of Galaxy Angel II, and having a local bookstore special order the soon to be released Volume 4, I am very curious as to what will happen with this title. I just wanted to know if any other company will pick up these titles to finish their release, or will they just be left as is?

A. Unfortunately Broccoli Books will not be releasing the rest of Galaxy Angel II or Disgaea 2. We are working with each of the respective licensors in Japan to help facilitate the titles to be picked up & released by a different US publisher. We’ll keep everyone posted if any of the titles are picked up.

Q. I am writing you is to ask if you have any merchandise (not manga or dvds) that you still have stock of that you will need to take care of before you end operations. Like I said, I am quite a fan of your properties and would appreciate a chance to get any remaining items from you.

A. We are planning to have one last warehouse sale on December 12, 2008 at our Los Angeles office. We haven’t decided on the format yet, but it will most likely be “make your own grab bag” format.

If you live in the Los Angeles area, please come to the warehouse sale. We’ll make an announcement about it in the first week of December.

If you don’t live in the Los Angeles area, maybe you can have a friend come by?

Q. Can I check with you when will Disgaea 2 Vol 3 released ?

A. Disgaea 2 vol 3 has not been released yet, and will not be released by Broccoli Books anymore.

Q. Are you able to ship dust jackets/stickers to England?

A. The official answer is “no, we cannot ship dust jackets & stickers to England.”
It’s because we only have the license to sell the English language version of the manga in the United States & Canada.

But since we have plenty of dust jackets & stickers on hand, we can ship you the ones you need. I might not get around to it until Jan/Feb 2009, though.

Q. Were volumes 3 and 4 of _Leave it to Piyoko_ ever released?

A. Leave it to Piyoko manga is only two volumes. Only the first volume was released, and we were starting to upload bits of vol 2 in BROCOMI.

Leave it to Piyoko anime series has a total of 8 episodes, and two volumes long. Both volumes have been released for the anime series.

Broccoli Japan has announced the dissolution of Broccoli International USA.
This means that Broccoli Books will no longer publish books in North America.

As the operations manager overseeing various aspects of the company, I have lots to do in the next several months. But I’d like to continue to give updates on Broccoli Books production blog periodically about specific titles.

All of the book licenses revert back to the Japanese publishers at the end of this year. And we are working w/ them so that the titles can be released by other US publishers sometime in the future. We are gathering all production material, including finished books that haven’t been printed yet, so that the new licensees will be able to use the materials if they choose to do so.

There are a few titles that are currently in talks already, so hopefully I’ll be able to provide updates until the end of this year.

Also, we still have a lot of requests for dust jackets & stickers for all of our books, and we’ll continue to mail them out until they’re all taken care of. If you want the dust jackets & stickers, please make sure you mail them to us by early December.

Thanks to all of you who read Broccoli Books over the years.
We enjoyed working on every single one of them.

We have a lot of promo goods that will be tossed out at the end of the year, and I’d like to send them to libraries & school clubs as much as possible. If your local library (or school club) is interested in receiving promo goods, please have the librarian or club officer email pr(at)bro-usa.com with the subject line “Broccoli Books Promo Goods”

More updates coming soon.

PS. I’ll leave the comments open & will be reading them, but may not have time to respond. Please play nice. If comments start getting unpleasant, comments option will be closed.

Hello, long time no post.
This is blogger Shiz as usual.

I’ve been busy w/ a lot of non-production related things, so I haven’t been able to post here. But I do write on the Industry Babble blog.

Anyhoo, we were contacted by some customers & also from our distributor that there was a binding error on Nui vol 1. It seems like page 38 is doubled up, and page 34 is missing?

We’re checking to see how widespread the binding error is (maybe certain batches, or the entire production), and it’s likely we’ll have a recall on the books. We’re not sure how it’ll be handled, although it’ll be impossible for our office to handle the returns, so we’ll probably ask bookstores to handle it for us.

When I get more information from our distributor & printer, I’ll post information here.
And send out a mailing list mailer.

I was cleaning up our marketing supply closet & found a box of autographed manga. So I’ll probably give them away on the mailing list. They’re old books (like Galaxy Angel vol 1), but who’d complain about free stuff, right?

Production updates?
I have none at this time.
Freelance editor Hope dropped by with Nui vol 2, but I haven’t looked it over yet… so maybe I’ll have her write a blog entry for me.

Hi blogger Shiz here.

I went to Virgin Megastore in Hollywood yesterday, and found COSMODE USA displayed with tokidoki merchandise.

I didn’t know Virgin had placed an order for the books, but I was a bit excited to see it at the store. tokidoki isn’t cosplay related, but I guess COSMODE USA will appeal to the same crowd? I hope so.

Hi blogger Shiz here.

I wrote the Yaoi Con report on Industry Babble.
Yaoi Con 2008 Day 1
Yaoi Con 2008 Day 2

I met Pet on Duty manga artist Nase Yamato, but forgot to get autographs for the mailing list give-away… sorry!

Hi, blogger Shiz here.

Sorry for being AWOL for almost 2 weeks. I was sick all of last week with some weird sinus-related cold-like illness. I’m not 100%, but I crawled into work since there’s a lot of bills to pay.

I need to catch up on the status of our production work. Where are we on everything? I’ll be sorting them all out today and tomorrow… so more posts coming soon!

Oh, I need to announce the winners of the last Broccoli Books fan club mailer, don’t I?

Busy, busy, busy.

Hello, blogger Shiz here.

Broccoli Books fan club members:
Please answer this month’s question (sent in the Broccoli Books fan club mailing list) by adding a comment in this post.

Two winners will be selected by the Broccoli Books staff for a Di Gi Charat gift set!

Good luck!

Hi blogger Shiz here.

Graphics assistant Cno updated the top banner of this blog w/ an image of Ky.

He’s preparing tsukimi dango, or dough balls for moon viewing in mid-September. Tsukimi = tsuki (moon) + mi(ru) (viewing) = moon viewing.

Mmmm, dango.
I liked them glazed with sweetened soy sauce.

Hi blogger Shiz here.

ComicMix has been busy with our books.
They reviewed E’S vol 1 in their Sept 5 installment of Manga Friday.

Happy reading!