FAQ
Welcome to the Frequently Asked Questions page! We hope this FAQ will help fans with common questions:
General
- Why are some of your books out of print/hard to find in stores?
- Do you have a release schedule of your upcoming manga?
- I have more questions/comments than what’s here. Is there somewhere else I can contact you?
- Where can I find your recent licenses?
- Is there any way to navigate through your Tumblr for specific topics/series?
Series Licensing
- Do you think __________ has a chance of being licensed?
- How are my suggestions in the survey used when deciding what to license?
- Are there any restrictions to manga requests, such as certain publishers?
- What else can I do as a reader to help Seven Seas license the books I want?
- Will you license the new chapters/digital exclusive content/bonus material of a series you publish?
- Do you ever start publishing a series, but then stop before it’s complete?
Series Specific
- Will you be releasing more Toradora! soon? Why is it taking so long?
- What’s the status on Hayate x Blade?
- What’s the status on Blood Alone?
- What’s the status on the Alice in the Country of… series?
Working at Seven Seas
- I’m a freelance editor/proofer/typesetter and I’d like to work at Seven Seas! Are you hiring?
- I’m a writer/artist looking to have my comic/manga/idea published, can I send you my script/art/comic/thing to you to publish?
eBooks / Digital Availability
- Do you have a digital platform, or eBooks of your titles?
- Why is _______ not available anywhere as ebooks?
- The series has several volumes available on Kindle/Comixology but then suddenly it stops, even though further print books are available. What gives?!
- Why is _______ available on all platforms except_________?
- Is the content in ebooks the same as in print?
- Can I download DRM-free versions of Seven Seas books?
- Does Seven Seas publish any series digital-only?
General
Why are some of your books out of print/hard to find in stores?
Updated May 2021: Currently all manga stock in North America is suffering availability issues due to COVID-19 and high-demand. While the growing audience for manga and light novels is wonderful news, there are only so many printers and so much paper to go around! Seven Seas is currently in the process of reprinting thousands of copies for hundreds of different volumes, but the production and distribution takes time. Any recent books currently out of stock should become available again over the next few months as reprint efforts continue.
In general, as much as we’d like to keep our entire catalog in print, it is important to remember that as a series ages, retailers stop ordering as many copies and reprinting is no longer feasible. Due to contract terms and limited warehouse space, certain volumes of some series may no longer be available to order new. We encourage all buyers to preorder books and purchase copies when available, and are happy to offer digital versions of most of our series to keep them accessible!
Do you have a release schedule of your upcoming manga?
Yup! On our new website right here.
I have more questions/comments than what’s here. Is there somewhere else I can contact you?
Is there any way to navigate through your Tumblr for specific topics/series?
We do have a page of commonly-used Tags, and a search function (right above our Tumblr page on the right-hand side).
Series Licensing
Where can I find your recent licenses?
A list of all of them (in order of most recent announcement to least recent announcement) is in our news archive.
Do you think _____ has a chance of being licensed?
In the world of manga licensing, especially for the US market, we have to be careful with the way statements, questions, and comments are worded. Obviously we cannot divulge what series we’re in the process of licensing (for any number of contractual and/or professional reasons) or are bidding on, so we can’t respond to any inquiries about specific titles that we don’t publish.
But now we have a survey where you can suggest up to four series for us to license–it’s in the upper right of this website at sevenseasentertainment.com. We hope you submit your requests through there, so we can record them properly. We’ll be posting a new survey there every month or so, if you have more titles to suggest in the future.
How are my suggestions in the survey used when deciding what to license?
Submitting manga and light novel titles serves multiple purposes–it gives us an idea of a title’s popularity, lets us see how readers’ interests are changing over time, and draws our attention to titles we may not have heard of before.
Licensing is a complicated process, so not all titles that are suggested can be licensed–either due to availability, past performance, or creator’s wishes, among other reasons–but we’re proud to say that the majority of titles we’ve licensed since the launch of our monthly surveys have been reader requests, including three of the top requested series on our surveys: the manga Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare, and the light novels Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation and Classroom of the Elite. So we really appreciate you filling out those surveys! If you’re curious about the kind of responses people submit, see this Twitter thread.
Are there any restrictions to manga requests, such as certain publishers?
We license from MANY Japanese publishers these days. So if you’re making license suggestions in the monthly Reader Survey mentioned above, don’t hold back. ?
What else can I do as a reader to help Seven Seas license the books I want?
If we’re already publishing part of a series/something by a particular creator/something in a genre you like and it’s selling well, that definitely increases the chances that we can license more. There are many ways you can give a book extra support:
1.) If you’re going to buy a book or ebook, pre-ordering it months in advance–either online or in a physical store–is a big help, since high pre-order numbers tell retailers to give the book more attention, which means the book will reach more eyes. (That’s why we Tweet about pre-orders so much, with the hashtags #mangapreorders and #7seasbooks on social media.) If you don’t pre-order, buy the book close to its debut date to keep momentum up.
2.) Request our books from your local library! We even have some of our ebooks on library digital systems through OverDrive.
3.) If you liked a book, share it! Use social media, suggest it to reviewers, leave reviews on sites like Amazon and GoodReads. (But please don’t give a low star rating for something the publisher can’t control, like damaged in transit, or something you can’t confirm, like changes from the Japanese version.) Please promote photos or digital images from the official editions and NOT scanlation images, since we can’t reblog your great review if it includes pirated images.
4.) If you can’t get your hands on a physical copy, buy in digital! That’s still money going directly to creators and publishers right now, as opposed to enormous mark-ups going to a third party on out-of-print physical editions. (There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not getting more books licensed.)
Will you license the new chapters/digital exclusive content/bonus material of a series you publish?
We usually need to wait for content to become a complete print book/tankobon before we can consider it. That means that if there are new chapters only available in magazine or digital format, we’re simply waiting (and hoping!) for them to become a physical book so we can publish that in English.
In the case of bonus material, we’ve been able to publish some of that in the past, but certain kinds of bonus material are exclusive to another format/edition and not available for license at all, no matter how much we’d like to publish it!
Do you ever start publishing a series, but then stop before it’s complete?
Rarely. Like most publishers, we begin a series with the intention of finishing it. However, in some cases, we license early standalone books or arcs of a long series on their own, with plans to publish more if those self-contained books sell well enough. Also as books from ongoing series are licensed per-volume, there can be different issues that make it no longer possible to publish more, which are not within all parties’ control.
Series Specific
Will you be releasing more Toradora! soon? Why is it taking so long?
Short answer, yes. Toradora! is easily one of our best-sellers here at Seven Seas, and we avidly await the next volume in the series as much as our fans do. Our publishing schedule is based on when a new volume comes out in Japan. Note: We’re also publishing the light novels now!
What’s the status on Hayate x Blade?
We released the first 6 volumes, as singles and then as 2 omnibus collections. Unfortunately, the license has switched over to Shueisha, so we no longer have the rights to the series.
What’s the status on Blood Alone?
We published the first 6 volumes (1 omnibus and 3 singles). Since then, the series switched publishers, so we no longer have the rights to publish it. But keep in mind, if it’s ever in English again, it would be the 3rd time the series has been attempted in the US market (so it’s unlikely).
What’s the status on the Alice in the Country of… series?
In September 2015, news went public of Quinrose suspending operations. Unfortunately, we regret to confirm that Quinrose’s closure affects the future publication of the following titles, which we had previously planned to release: Alice in the Country of Hearts: White Rabbit and Some Afternoon Tea Vol. 2, Alice in Twin World, and Alice in the Country of Diamonds: Junk Box Diamonds. These titles have been indefinitely removed from our current publication schedule.
We at Seven Seas were delighted to have published 35 titles, including both manga and light novels, based on Quinrose’s Alice in the Country of… franchise. Our deepest thanks to the passionate Alice in the Country of… fans for their continued support, and our well wishes go out to all negatively affected by Quinrose’s business suspension.
But we’re happy to say the mangaka of many of those beloved Alice in the Country of… manga, Mamenosuke Fujimaru, made a similar manga for Seven Seas, based on the Wizard of Oz: Captive Hearts of Oz, which we think you’ll love!
Working at Seven Seas
I’m a freelance editor/proofer/typesetter and I’d like to work at Seven Seas! Are you hiring?
Sometimes we are, which we post about on our Jobs page.
I’m a writer/artist looking to have my comic/manga/idea published, can I send you my script/art/comic/thing to you to publish?
Seven Seas is not currently accepting portfolio submissions or original content pitches.
eBooks / Digital Availability
Do you have a digital platform, or eBooks of your titles?
We’re on comiXology, Kindle, BookWalker, NOOK, Kobo, iBooks (through their app), Google Play and OverDrive, and we’re regularly adding more of our titles onto digital platforms.
Why is ___________ not available anywhere as ebooks?
Digital licenses are separate from print, and so a publisher having the right to publish a physical edition does not automatically give permission to release an ebook. Reasons these rights are not available may vary, from pending licenses, the rights already belonging to another company, or simply a Japanese licensor or creator not wishing to see their books made available online. Seven Seas Entertainment is not able to discuss the specifics of a series’ current contractual status but all efforts are being made to make as much of our library available in ebook formats as possible.
The ___________ series has several volumes available on Kindle/Comixology but then suddenly it stops, even though further print books are available. What gives?!
Amazon’s Kindle and Comixology platforms have their own restrictions on what content is available. Because of this, some of our more mature rated series have had books pulled or been made unavailable in their entirety. Unfortunately this is outside of a publisher’s control, but the books remain available on other platforms. Currently affected titles include To Love Ru Darkness, The Testament of Sister New Devil Storm!, Magika Swordsman and Summoner, Dragonar Academy, and Kanokon.
Why is ___________ available on all platforms except ___________?
If not due to content restrictions (see question above), then this is likely just a specific platform not being caught up on available material. While Seven Seas makes all backlist content available to platforms at relatively the same time, it is up to an individual digital publisher when they choose to release them.
Is the content in ebooks the same as in print?
Generally, yes–all content pages are the same in both print and digital editions. Sometimes there’s a change in format, non-story pages, or structure, such as how select series printed as omnibus editions are published online in their original single volume forms. This includes titles such as To Love Ru and orange.
Can I download DRM-free versions of Seven Seas books?
Seven Seas books are hosted on a variety of platforms and subject to the DRMs of those individual services and software.
Does Seven Seas publish any series digital-only?
As a publisher, we focus primarily on print books and have only released one digital-exclusive title–the one-chapter OKAYADO title, Deadline Summoner. However, some of our older books may now be out of print, but remain online to purchase as ebooks.
