The current state of the U.S. economy has got a lot of us thinking about how we can cut back on our spending, and for many manga readers, that means spending less money on manga.
But if you've been buying and reading manga for a while, you've probably accumulated a stack of books that you don't necessarily want to keep. What to do? You could try online manga trading. To learn more about this, I spoke with the Kirsten Rose, the founder of Mangatude to get her take on the pros and cons of online manga trading.
The way manga trading works is you post your list of graphic novels that you'd like to trade along with a wish list of manga that you'd like to get. Fellow traders see your listing, and contact you to propose a trade. No money changes hands -- just manga, over the mail. When it works well, online trading can give fans the opportunity to try something new at a fraction of the cost of buying the same books new in a bookstore or comics shop.
There are several outlets for trading manga. There's a Yahoo group called MangaTrade, a LiveJournal group also called Manga_Trade, there's Paperback Swap, which covers all kinds of book trades, and then there's Mangatude.
Mangatude has been around for two years, and currently has a member list of over 300 members. Mangatude isn't just about trading manga -- members also trade anime, toys, and anime/manga/gaming accessories. Membership is free. Other than paying for postage to send your books to your fellow trader, listing your books and trading is also free. There's also an online community section, where fans can trade opinions and information, and an encyclopedia section that catalogs various manga series.
Recently, Manga Xanadu blogger Lori Henderson of shared some of her experiences with Mangatude. Her first reactions were very positive, and then she posted a not-so-great experience. I wanted to know more about Mangatude, so I contacted Ms. Rose to get the Mangatude perspective on this, straight from the source.
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Q: Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Where are you based? Is Mangatude your only business venture, or do you do something else to pay the bills?Kirsten Rose: I am Kirsten Rose, and I'm based outside of Minneapolis. I do freelance PHP/mySQL development and Mangatude, currently, is my only business venture (although, I would call it more a labor of love. Mangatude is not a money-making venture).
Q: What made you decide to start this site? How and why did you see the need for a site like this?
Kirsten Rose: My decision to start this website was purely personal. I had an obscene amount of manga and had a desire to consume even more. Since manga has little-to-no resale value I thought it would be a great idea to trade away the old for something new. I couldn't find much online so I built Mangatude.
Also, I had never developed a website from top to bottom and used this as an opportunity to grow my skills.
Q: Is Mangatude only for trading manga, or are other things offered for trade?
Kirsten Rose: Traders on our site also swap anime, figures, magazines, plushies, etc. We currently have just under 3,500 items up for trade.
Q: When did you first launch the site? How has it been going so far?
Kirsten Rose: Mangatude will have its' second anniversary on Friday, January 30, 2009 and I think it has been going very well. With one or two exceptions, I am pleased with the group of people we have attracted. Mangatude really has a bunch of nice, considerate, friendly traders, especially the very early members who patiently stuck around while those first kinks were being worked out.
Q: Speaking of kinks to work out, I wanted to get your reaction to these comments that were recently posted by Lori Henderson, a manga blogger who joined Mangatude. Lori has also been an online advocate for your site. She posted this story about her recent experiences at Mangatude. Here's an excerpt:"There was a trader on Mangatude that made a lot of trades in November and December that also had something to this effect on her front page; 'You must send your items first, as I've been cheated many times. If you won't, we don't have a deal.' (red flag) She also had 36 good ratings, and not neutral or bad."Q: So Lori's story raises some interesting questions... How do you manage members' behavior?
"Around Christmas, she had a vacation notification that she would be back in January and would ship after that. About a week after her message said she would ship, it was seen that she was checking the site, but nothing was going out, and she was not responding to messages. That's when the negatives started flooding in, all with the same story: they had sent their items per the deal, but she hadn't sent anything and wasn't replying to messages. This person kept checking the site, and the bad ratings came coming in. Finally over this last weekend, she deleted her wish/want list, all her 'friends,' and changed her name and address to gibberish. Not the actions of an honest, responsible person, it appeared."
"In a seeming 'change of heart,' she returned today, promising to send back the books, or something else in exchange. This sounds more like she's a kid, and someone got in contact with her parents, and she got busted big time. She says she won't be on the site anymore. And how do I know all this? I was one of the people she got manga from."
Kirsten Rose: It is hard to keep track of each trade so I rely on members to come to me with complaints. I also rely on members to fairly rate each trade they make. Negative ratings will effectively "close" a person's account down at Mangatude as no one will be willing to trade with them.
Q: Is it all purely on the honor system?
Kirsten Rose: Traders rate each other but apart from that, it is purely an honor system.
Q: Do you step in when a member abuses the system and complaints come in?
Kirsten Rose: Yes. In the case that Lori wrote about I emailed the cheated members and asked if they would like to give the trader in question a month to make amends or should her account be shut down. They opted for letting her make amends. In the two years Mangatude has been around this is the first time I've had to step in. I can only think of two bad traders in the past two years.
Q: Are you planning on implementing changes to address this sort of abuse?
Kirsten Rose: Apart from closing accounts and blocking IP addresses there is little I can do. Traders need to rely on the rating system and the trading community.
Despite the enormity of the Internet, the manga trading community is relatively small - word gets out when a trader is not on the up-and-up.
Q: What are your future plans for Mangatude? Do you have plans to expand the site, or perhaps set up some way to make money with this or charge any fees?
Kirsten Rose: I really have no growth, expansion or monetization plans for Mangatude. I am currently working on making Mangatude easier to use, easier to find stuff, easier to communicate in but I won't be veering from the trading aspect of it. I think some websites lose their way when they try to be all things to all people.
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Visit Mangatude to check out what's available for trade, see the online communities and learn more about this online trading site for manga fans. Have you been trading with Mangatude or other online trading sites? Share your experiences in the comments below!
Image credit: © Kirsten & Jeff Rose
Comments
Despite my post, I’ve been having a great time trading on Mangatude. I’ve been able to fill in a lot of holes in my collection. I’ve done a lot better on there than on the the mailing lists. And quite honestly, it’s just plain fun. Looking through people’s lists when they make offers, or seeing another volume you need to read or fill in.
But, something I saw on another member’s page is another good idea. For the first few trades, have everything sent by delivery confirmation. Once a relationship has been established, then you can stop. But it gives both sides something more concrete than “I sent it.” It’s only an addition .75, and considering the savings I’m already getting on just paying postage, it’s worth it.
I want to echo Lori’s comments–I’ve had really good experiences on Mangatude so far (in fact, I did a trade with Lori!), and yeah, it’s been a lot of fun.
I’m also a big fan of delivery confirmation, and I think I’ll probably always use it when making a trade with someone for the first time. I’ve used it on all my packages but two (I was in a hurry one day), and though all the trades turned out fine, I admit I was nervous until I’d heard those two were received. I also keep a spreadsheet that’s available online for anyone I’m trading with to be able to see the shipping status of their trade with me at a glance.
Mangatude has been a godsend, really. My local comic shop will give me about a dollar in store credit for a volume of used manga, so when you consider that with Mangatude, I’m getting a book for a book, it’s really a no-brainer!
I tried to sign up for Mangatude about two days ago, but the email was never sent and it wont let me send emails to mangatude@gamil.com for whatever reason… but I would really like to join, so if anyone could contact Kirsten for me that would be great ;p