Looking at BL book rankings....

I wrote this up for another forum, but thought I would share it here as well with a little more commentary. Matt Blind has started up his manga rankings lists again! He used to do them weekly, then sort of fell off the wagon for a while, but is now back on track. Matt works for a Borders, I believe, and has access to sales reports, which he uses to compile the weekly manga sales rankings.

There turned out to be some really interesting BL books in the top 500 for the week ending July 4.

118. ↑3 (121) : Incubus Master (Kindle Edition) 1 - Yaoi Press, Jan 2010 [98.3] ::
176. ↓-1 (175) : Incubus Master Captured (Kindle Edition) 1 - Yaoi Press, Jun 2010 [70.9] ::
198. ↓-10 (188) : Cute Devil - Tokyopop Blu, Apr 2010 [64.6] ::
226. ↑25 (251) : Finder Series 1 Target in the View Finder - DMP Juné, Sep 2010 [57.7] ::
247. ↑33 (280) : Caged Slave (novel) - DMP Juné, May 2008 [52.0] ::
255. ↓-30 (225) : Madness 2 - Tokyopop Blu, Jun 2010 [50.9] ::
268. ↑18 (286) : Junjo Romantica 1 - Tokyopop Blu, Oct 2006 [47.7] ::
277. ↑5 (282) : Maiden Rose 1 - DMP Juné, May 2010 [45.9] ::
278. ↓-5 (273) : Breath 5 - Yaoi Generation, Apr 2010 [45.8] ::
280. ↑18 (298) : Junjo Romantica 2 - Tokyopop Blu, Jan 2007 [45.6] ::
304. ↓-40 (264) : Junjo Romantica 11 - Tokyopop Blu, Dec 2009 [40.6] ::
311. ↓-5 (306) : Junjo Romantica 12 - Tokyopop Blu, Aug 2010 [39.4] ::
320. ↑42 (362) : Calling - Tokyopop Blu, Jun 2010 [37.7] ::
344. ↓-24 (320) : The Tyrant Falls in Love 1 - DMP Juné, Aug 2010 [33.5] ::
346. ↓-7 (339) : I Want to Bite (novel) - DMP DokiDoki, Jul 2010 [33.4] ::
358. ↑91 (449) : Winter Demon Zero (Kindle Edition) - Yaoi Press, Apr 2010 [32.6] ::
370. ↓-3 (367) : Rin! 3 - DMP Juné, Apr 2007 [30.4] ::
389. ↑163 (552) : Kiss Blue 2 - DMP Juné, Nov 2010 [29.2] ::
394. ↓-4 (390) : Rin! 2 - DMP Juné, Jan 2007 [28.2] ::
400. ↓-13 (387) : Finder Series 2 Cage in the View Finder - DMP Juné, Nov 2010 [27.6] ::
408. ↓-57 (351) : Yokan: Premonition 2 - DMP Juné, Dec 2010 [27.1] ::
410. ↑65 (475) : Midnight Bloom - DMP DokiDoki, Jul 2010 [26.9] ::
421. ↑220 (641) : Junjo Romantica 3 - Tokyopop Blu, May 2007 [26.1] ::
422. ↓-123 (299) : Isle of Forbidden Love - Tokyopop Blu, Jun 2010 [25.9] ::
423. ↑5 (428) : Mysterious Love - DMP Juné, Sep 2010 [25.9] ::
428. ↑11 (439) : Scarlet - Tokyopop Blu, Aug 2010 [25.2] ::
431. ↑10 (441) : Voice or Noise 3 - Tokyopop Blu, Aug 2010 [25.0] ::
438. ↓-86 (352) : Incubus Master (Kindle Edition) 2 - Yaoi Press, Jan 2010 [24.7] ::
441. ↑7 (448) : Hey! Class President 3 - 801 Media, Aug 2010 [24.4] ::
448. ↑10 (458) : Garden Sky - DMP, Sep 2010 [23.6] ::
450. ↑10 (460) : Stay Close to Me - DMP Juné, Sep 2010 [23.4] ::
454. ↑7 (461) : Cool/Uncool - DMP DokiDoki, Sep 2010 [23.2] ::
489. ↓-13 (476) : Desire Sensibility - DMP Juné, Jul 2010 [20.2] ::
492. ↓-72 (420) : Incubus Master (Kindle Edition) 3 - Yaoi Press, Jan 2010 [19.9] ::

Publisher totals in top 500 for week ending July 4:
DMP Juné 12
DMP DokiDoki 4
801 Media 1
Tokyopop Blu 11
Yaoi Generation 1
Yaoi Press 5

First, a bit about those sales lines in my language. The first number is the book's ranking out of 500, based on sales from an exhaustive list of vendors. The arrows tell you whether the book is up or down on the list from last week and the number in the parentheses is the rank it last held. Then the title, format, publisher and publication date. If it's a book, no format is listed.

Finally, there's a number that is very hard to explain. It's not how many books were sold, but where the book falls on a sales ranking where the #1 book is given 100 and the other books ranked thereafter on a scale from 100 - 1. Looking a the list, the final book (which is not BL) is ranked at 18.9. I think that means that the top 500 books made up 81.1% of all manga book sales that week, but I could be wrong about this. As I said, that last number is confusing, but you can read more about it at the site I linked.

Some thoughts: First off, Yaoi Press' foray into the electronic novel format is kicking the butt of all the other publishers. I can't help but be impressed with Yamilia Abraham's savvy and efforts to keep her baby going. In fact, the "Incubus Master" series made the list of the top 50 series; no other BL series did:
39. ↓-2 (37): Incubus Master - Yaoi Press [174.7] ::

Second, the DMP novel "Caged Slave" is doing very well, considering it came out in May 2008. In fact, the next week's ranks have it as the top DMP BL property, even over "Finder" pre-orders. I don't know if it's been selling well all along or if people are just now getting around to buying it, but it seems odd for a two-year-old novel. Are people just now discovering it? Could the Yaoi Press novel success be interesting people enough to seek out other BL novels? Hum!

Also, I deeply believe that the "Rin!" orders on the list must come from a bulk order from a Library or store - I would guess a library. The Rin books are not in the next week's rankings, which is why I think it has to be some sort of one-time large order. It's interesting, though, because it's an early BL title and very innocent in tone and presentation; it's a very good title to use to introduce people to BL or to put on a public shelf.

The next week's rankings are not very different other than the "Rin" titles missing from the list and the debut of "Ze" for 801. I'm not sure why there aren't more 801 Media titles on the list other than they probably sell out or sell-through quickly because of their niche nature. Notice that only the most current 801 books are on the lists, which tells me the others might be sold out or selling very low numbers. 801 books are only sold online or in the direct market (with rare exceptions) and have low print runs. Everyone who's interested in hardcore BL knows this by now, so I believe the books tend to be ordered early to ensure that people actually receive their copy. In other words, I think the 801 books flare hot and fast on the ranking lists and then disappear again.

It seems clear that BLU books rank higher than DMP books, but there are more DMP BL books (from all imprints) in the top 500 than BLU. Not a surprise, considering that DMP has about 65% BL titles to Tokyopop's...10% if that? Still, TP makes sure to put out two or 3 BL books a month without fail, probably because they are surefire sellers, as opposed to the rest of its line.

"Junjo Romantica" is obviously the big seller for BLU and "Finder" is already big for DMP via pre-order. I was surprised at how many pre-order books there were on the list. I think almost all the commonly known pre-order books for DMP and BLU are on the list. There's a few "hidden" pre-orders out there that haven't been advertised yet, and they're not showing up on the list.

Ok, so I'm no expert and I might be totally full of it in interpreting these numbers. Please feel free to correct me or offer differing opinions. I hope some of you find this interesting, at least. <3

love, lore