from Jian Ma:
There was a time when I wanted to buy this book after I heard it was going to be translated into English...until I saw the cover art. Understanding
genre is valuable not just for writing but for business as well. Yen Press made a move to try and appeal to a larger audience by Americanizing the images in order to attract a more diverse population. Of course I do not know the results as I have no data on the sales, but I can say that the community who was interested in Spice and Wolf in America did not favor the Americanized cover art. I can also say that subsequent releases retained the original cover art instead of the Americanized versions.
Some contextual notes:javascript:void(0)
1. The category in Japan for these types of book are called “Light Novels,” not very heard of in America.
2. They put “Light novels” into the “Manga” section in book stores despite being about 215/240 pages of text, 13/240 pages of credits, table of contents, etc, and 12/240 pages of artwork/illustrations. As a result, “Manga” and “Light Novels” get treated the same based on initial assumptions despite being completely different in style.
3. http://www.yenpress.com/2009/09/spice-and-wolf-unveiled/
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