I’m a little weirded out by even asking this here, but I know there are some people here who might be able to offer some good suggestions, so here it is - I have a semi-huge collection of yaoi manga and doujinshi. I’ve got plenty of just plain shoujo manga, some popular shonen-ai themed stuff (Yami no Matsuei, etc.) and some kind of hardcore yaoi (Be-Boy Zips, etc.) that I’m really not interested in anymore. It’s all in Japanese and at the time represented a pretty huge chunk of change. The condition is impeccable - almost all of it still has the obi wrap and that little bookmarky thing, even. I’d like to sell most of it, keep the sentimental pieces, and use the cash on my garden or something. So, uh, what do I do?
Ebay would probably consider some of it “mature audiences”. I haven’t been able to find auctions of the stuff I’m most concerned about, but I don’t want to get caught on the wrong side of the law. Also, the fact that I can’t find any completed listings for Be Boy Zips suggests to me that maybe I’m going at this the wrong way. Is there somewhere else I should sell this? Should I just do a big lot and ship it off to whoever’s willing to pay? Is listing individually too much of a pain in the ass? Especially considering I’d have to sound out the names since I don’t even remember what half of it is? I can work it out if I have to, though, of course.
I’ve never sold anything on Ebay before, and I want to make sure that if I do liquidate my collection I don’t waste my time and effort. These were expensive shit to import at the time (late 90’s early 00’s) and I’d like to get as much for it as I can.
Honestly, I don’t think there is a market for Japanese language yaoi. It was always a small niche market anyway and now that there a lots and lots of English translations, there’s no demand. Maybe you could little bit for the hugely popular titles like Haru wo Daiteite but you’re not gonna get anywhere close to what you probably paid.
I’m in a similar situation. I’m not as avid a fan as I once was and while I don’t want to completely eliminate my collection, I want to pare it down to my favorite authors and get rid of the bulky magazines. I hate to just throw this stuff out but I don’t see what else to do. It’s too explicit to give to anyone other than fellow yaoi fans. I’m tempted to contact the organizers of yaoi-con and ship it to them to give out as door prizes or something but it’d probably cost me a gazillion dollars in shipping fees.
Kimera’s been to yaoi-con before. Maybe she’ll stop by and have a suggestion.
I would probably guess eBay. There’s enough scanlation teams going now that people have easier access to what they want in English (if they don’t want originals). I would say it’s probably worth selling them in singles at least to start, on the off-chance that someone’s missing a particular one. I’d go through it and see if any of the writers/artists have made it big since - might not mean a huge amount of difference in terms of price but it could be a good selling point.
You might in the end just have to put it down to sunk costs, alas.
Unfortunately, as tremorviolet noted, there are so many works commercialized now that Japanese stuff doesn’t sell as well unless you have a series that is very popular and hasn’t been licensed. If you lived in California, I would suggest going to Ycon and selling it there.
If you take a picture of what you have, then I can give you some ideas for what it might sell for. I got out of the community for a while so I can’t think of any of the old livejournal communities or forums where people used to sell/trade stuff except for Garage Sale Japan which is a general site for Japanese stuff. Try there first and let me ask my friends where they go.
I went to Yaoi-Con years and years ago… not in the cards to hop on over to San Francisco these days, I’m afraid. I do notice some “mixed lots” selling okay on Ebay now, but a lot of them are in English. I’m pretty sure I have a few things that aren’t ever going to be translated, but I don’t know that those are the ones I want to let go of. Of course.
Is there any market for French-translated manga? I happened to be in France when a lot of cool stuff was available over there translated but not over here. I’m sure it’s absolutely worthless.
ETA - so, selling singles on Ebay, even if I don’t get any bites - I read the rules on “Mature Audiences” stuff, but how does that really play out with manga? Some of this stuff doesn’t really have much redeeming social value.
No advice on yaoi, but last year I sold a collection of recent Playboy magazines (mostly from the '90s) on eBay with no problems. You just can’t accept payment through Paypal because they won’t deal with adult/mature materials at all, but you can always accept a U.S. Postal Service money order.
You could also check out fan groups for the particular titles the doujinshi, at least, are based on, and get some thoughts there, if not quick sales, depending on how popular that particular title and its characters are.
Well, er, I’m not sure I want to sell the doujinshi. Which, of course, are really the only untranslated titles that might be in demand. But they’re, you know, sentimental. Especially the Gundam Wing ones.
Ycon is going to be your biggest single market, but there are hundreds of smaller cons happening all the time (or maybe I’m in a Anime Golden land here in the Sunshine State).
You could find a con in your area and go. I haven’t been to a con yet that didn’t have a swapmeet, a venue for people to sell of bits of their personal collections without paying the actual vendor fee. You will need to pay for admittance to the con, but you can probably get away with only attending the day the swapmeet is held (for multi-day cons)
Your stuff might not go over well with the average Cartoon Network based anime fan, but the hardcore collectors frequent the small cons just as much, if not more so, as the big cons.
Ebay might pan out in the long haul, but you’ll likely have to post your stuff multiple times before you find a buyer, and the fees they charge add up.
I stuck out a feeler - listed one of my Lawful Drugs (sob). If it doesn’t sell at all I’ll consider either selling in a lot or seeking alternate venues.
Stuff like the Be-Boy zips would go, especially on LiveJournal, I think. Stuff like the Japanese language YnM might not go for a lot of money, but it would go. It’s simply that not many people list this stuff in auctions, not that people don’t want it. Try searching for doujinshi on eBay, it sells.