@princeofcups @Kuromizu @GoblinGuy @ShinGetsu
You guys should probably take an economy 101 class before repeating this tired, utterly delusional argument about stickin' it to the man.
Of course the author gets the cut for every publishing license sold. True, they don't get a cut
per volume in this case—the local publisher pays upfront and the author receives their share immediately. It means the publisher is
already risking their invested money on something that may not pay off. So if the local release underperforms, they will not buy any more licenses, meaning less further profit to the author as well as any other series that may be cut off by association. You shouldn't magically expect that if it won't pay off for the local publisher, they will keep throwing money at authors. No, what will happen is they will stop doing what is unprofitable.
The implication that authors get a small cut while publishers get most of the profit is ludicrous. If this were the case, everyone would want to start a publishing business at all costs and authors would rush to self-publish. The reality? The most successful book publishers' profit margin is
10% at the upper end of the estimates, well in line with most businesses out there, including—yes—grocery and other retail stores you somehow don't have such a problem with. The only thing keeping these businesses afloat is sales volume, which is where their profits come from. It's the economies of scale, not profiting off the author. Publishing is a high-risk endeavor because of the upfront costs involved; they have a higher probability of going out of business than an author who consistently puts out a quality product, which is also why a few publishers get closed or bought out and consolidated with every unlucky economic bump. Again, the reason they are mostly big companies isn't that they can afford to be big; rather it's because they
cannot afford to be small. There is work of many people involved in editing and pre-production, marketing and distribution, PR, and all sorts of management. They also pay taxes. It's not free, and everyone involved creates value rather than consumes it.
The second aspect to this is that publishers do what authors themselves either can't or don't have the time to. It's a symbiotic relationship, not a parasitic one. There are
no massively successful mangakas who made a fortune on self-published works. All doujin authors who get an offer from a publisher jump on the opportunity at once. Even authors that have already made a name for themselves and have a devoted personal fan base, like Masashi Kishimoto or Kentaro Miura, still publish new works through major publishers despite the risk of getting axed—which they also do just like any other authors (see Samurai 8 for a recent example). Why? Because they understand that going that route both increases their outreach and removes any of the hassle they would have to go through when self-publishing. Publishers would not be needed if self-publishing could compete at scale. Even the risk of cancellation does not outweigh that. The chances that a work that got canceled at a big magazine would make it if it were self-published are very slim. It's better to swallow that pill and start something better ASAP instead of wasting time in efforts to save a failed product.
Last but not least, piracy is a double-edged sword. It can both help prepare and/or grow a paying audience
and it can stifle a small one. It helped some authors and companies rise to prominence, and it has brought others to ruin. Making claims as to which case you're looking at before results are known requires a much better understanding of underlying economic processes than you have demonstrated with this argument. But the rule of thumb is that when if you cannot personally chip in, it's best to not interfere with new publications. At least give them time to issue a second print or sell out some early volumes so that people are incentivized to finish their collection. It benefits everyone in the end. Authors get paid more, companies stay in business, more manga is brought to local stores at affordable price points, and the community grows. In any case feeling entitled to one person's work or another's hobby output is never a good idea unless you are in a contractual relationship.
