Sorry, the headline had to be a little truncated--should read "for Distribution and Co-publishing." I just saw this on Publisher's Lunch. An interesting partnership, eh Ookla? I'd think it'd be fun for you guys to explore new areas.
A little over a month after being highlighted in the NY Times for renewing their distribution agreement with CDS, Tokyopop has switched gears. Now the company says they will move their North American distribution to HarperCollins--which had been looking for a client of scale ever since Perseus left their distribution services and acquired CDS.
The new arrangement also features a co-publishing agreement to "create a progressive new line of co-branded manga titles" developed in conjunction with Harper authors and properties. Aiming for as many as 24 titles a year together, Tokyopop will "manage the creation of manga text and artwork in close consultation with the originating authors and HarperCollins editors." Initial titles will include projects with bestselling author Meg Cabot. Harper takes over sales and distribution in mid-June, and co-published titles are expected to launch in 2007.
Tokypop publisher Mike Kiley, reached by phone in Bologna, said of the surprise switch, "The simplest way to characterize it is deals can fall apart." He adds that, "In spite of everyone's best intentions...there were some deal terms we simply weren't able to come to agreement on," and characterizes the impasse with CDS/Perseus as "not anything more dramatic and complicated than not being able to cross every t and dot every i." The co-publishing concept with Harper was "very much a mutual" inspiration, Kiley says. The new line and new distribution will both align with Tokypop's mission of moving "more into mainstream areas that are much larger than the niche that manga has historically occupied."
Harper CEO Jane Friedman notes in the release, "We have been eager to enter the manga marketplace, and can think of no more powerful way than to join forces with TOKYOPOP, a company we have long admired as the leading manga publisher in North America."
