ANN gets Hassled; Yen Press prints money, part II

Anime news site Anime News Network features a weekly podcast which is usually rendered unlistenable by the nasally voice and general douchebaggery of co-host Zac Bertschy. (Yeah, the guy rubs me the wrong way.) However, if you can put that aside, their most recent show features an interview with Yen Press honcho Kurt Hassler. The interview begins at about the 16:45 point in the show. I haven’t been able to listen to it much yet, so I’m not yet sure if there’s anything mind-blowing in there, but it ought to be worth a listen if you’re interested in the man behind Yen Press’s surprising success.

And speaking of success, comic site Comic Book Resources has posted some heavy stats and analysis on how well many comic companies did in 2009. If you find that a bit tl;dr and/or mostly have an interest in manga distributors, Anime Vice offers an easier-to-parse breakdown. In terms of dollars, Yen Plus more than tripled the previous year’s sales in 2009, and it looks like they’re in for another great year this year, thanks to that little Twilight comic you might have heard something about; they’ve committed to printing more volumes of Twilight than all of their titles combined sold in 2009, which shows tremendous confidence in that product. If it can live up to its hype and sell, a whole lot of money is going to be made.