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UK retailers missing out on manga

13.06.07 Graeme Neill

UK retailers are becoming more aware of the sales possibilities of stocking manga--but they still lag behind the rest of the world, a manga publisher claimed at a seminar last night.

Emma Hayley, director at Metro Media, publishes Manga Shakespeare books under the SelfmadeHero imprint. She told a "What is manga?" seminar, held at the Japanese embassy in London this week, that there have been difficulties in overcoming snobbery in some parts of the book retail trade. "However, it is an attitude that is changing," she said.

Hayley added that UK retailers should follow the lead of US booksellers. "Our books have been featured in both Borders and Waterstone's and they do a good job," she said. "However, they put all manga in a dedicated section. If you look at the US, stores have manga biography in the biography section for example. They are no longer treating manga as a genre."

Retail Manga Graeme Neill

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