

It's not just one single manga, there are quite a few that I like and that are
not published in the West. Some of them are moderately popular in Japan, but
most are obscure. The vast majority are seinen and their serialization has
finished.

**How do I get these comics published in the West and is it something I can do
on my own?**

The only ideas I've come up with are with regards to contacting Western and/or
Japanese publishers. The former would be just a request of sorts, whereas the
latter would involve asking to purchase license, but that pretty much becomes
a business on its own and I am not sure if that's what I want. Any other
ideas? I am willing to part with a decent amount of resources for every manga,
so I am open to _any_ suggestions. The publication medium doesn't matter, both
physical and digital are acceptable, though I find the latter a bit more
appropriate nowadays.

* * *

**EDIT:** To make it more clear, I am looking for a way to bring some of my
favourite manga to the Western audience, not how to purchase manga copies. To
illustrate this with an example from the literary world: Suppose I wanted to
translate a book from a foreign language to English. It would be perfectly
acceptable to approach the author, and/or their publisher, with a sample
translation and then potentially negotiate a deal. Or it's not uncommon to
directly speak with a publisher who's willing to publish the book and then
they do the rest of the negotiation (and legal affairs) on your behalf.


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manga-production
There's a manga I like and I want it published in the West. What can I do about it?


You can try contacting the Japanese publisher to see if anyone has already
licensed the rights to translate and publish the manga in the US. If it has,
then hopefully you can follow up with them. If it hasn't, then either you're
going to have to either find someone willing to publish it or find a way to do
it yourself, and if it's an obscure title then you're probably not looking at
a particularly lucrative business model unless you can find a way to make the
cost of licensing, translating, printing and distributing the manga less than
the amount you get from sales.

I expect that the best return on investment would come from something like
Crunchyroll manga - no printing required and they already have a distribution
network set up, but they still probably wouldn't do much with it unless
there's a reason the title might help drive subscriptions.


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The best way to get a title licensed is to show that there is interest in the
title via sending questions/tweets, e-mails, or filling out various companies'
surveys. For example, [Seven Seas
Entertainment](http://www.sevenseasentertainment.com/) has a monthly reader's
survey, and part of the survey asks you which Japanese manga series and which
Japanese light novel series you would like to see licensed and published. They
do [tally the results](http://www.sevenseasentertainment.com/about/faq/).

Also, publishers in the west sometimes have ties to the series of a company,
author, etc. (it's case by case), so it's worth looking into whether the
company can legally license it at all. For example, here are some ties:

  * Shueisha/Shogakukan - Viz Media
  * Square Enix - Yen Press
  * Kodansha - Kodansha USA or Vertical

See also [this reddit
thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/manga/comments/34ow2n/if_there_was_a_manga_i_wanted_publishedlicensed/)
and [Seven Seas Entertainment's ask.fm
feed](http://ask.fm/SevenSeasEntertainment/).


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There are fan translation groups you can ask to translate it(scanalators).
They dont get paid and dont usually have a license for the works they
translate. They generally do it to spread the culture and have a little fun
doing it. (I work for a fan scanalation group)

I only mention this 4 years later in case anyone else has the same question.


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