Tankobonbon is an independent manga and light novel-centric bookstore. But how does it work, and how did it come to be? Read on the history and workings of our small specialty bookstore—in case you're also interested in setting up your own. :)
One boring day
The owner is mainly into anime, watching as much seasonal anime as possible. Still, after an encounter of holding a physical manga for the first time in a bookstore overseas, it became the first volume purchase, which eventually grew to more than just a one-time thing. The owner is constantly checking new licenses from publishers by staying up late to keep an eye on overseas conventions and license events. Also, keeping track of every single book collected and planning to collect, and budgeting allowances to grow the collection or prepare for an upcoming pre-order day—there's no end to what came after that. One day, after experiencing multiple lost manga from buying overseas, a thought suddenly hit: why can't we just purchase manga locally? Then a few minutes after, without hesitation, in the most impulsive moment of the owner's life, a DTI name was registered—Tankobonbon Manga Book Store. An educational background with nothing to do with manga, database, website coding, social media marketing, logistics, entrepreneurship, and all things business was a whole bookstore creation out of thin air. No business plan, no capital, and no knowledge of what should come after; it's a long walk on ice.
The should-be-expected paperwork
Since the whole thing was pretty much thought out of thin air, research came afterward. Google is a good best friend when it comes to knowing the documents needed to set up a business. Still, Google didn't mention (or rather, it went over the owner's head) the fact that Philippine paperwork processes are something else entirely. Multiple occasions of daily back-and-forth, lining up from 5 am until the afternoon only to not make it to the cut-off, calling multiple government centers to confirm and inquire, out-of-the-blue learning about trade and logistics terms and abbreviations, all-of-a-sudden learning of the importance of having connections—and having a car. Looking back, every end of the day can begin with an exhausting "wow... what?!" reaction.
The urge to just stop and quit never disappeared daily because who in their right mind would start a "business" in the latter half of the year? That's a waste of half of all permit validation. Then there's capital--how do you begin a zero-capital startup? Scouring interest first.
Twitter was a suggestion as a place to "sell manga" since the buy and sell aspect of Twitter is not something to scoff at. The owner posted a couple of books on the internet to see if there was any interest (although the plan was already underway—it should've been before everything else) and blew up. With interest intact, a handful of books were ordered from the payment-first basis of Twitter, then it grew.
Building up the store
It's just the owner—with no other staff, everything must be done efficiently. The usual buy-and-sell of Twitter is taking too much time and energy checking everything one by one, so another thought came to mind: build a website. Having a website will create a system that can accept and manage orders, but it requires knowledge of e-commerce and a dash of coding to make it look attractive and easy to browse. The owner tried to learn coding and site design in a short span, and some early guests of the site noticed that the design changed multiple times to fit the owner's expectations: a site that I wish existed for someone detail-oriented like me. It shouldn't just be a website with books; it should be a website for a fan.
The usual bookstore sites that the owner bought books before—Amazon, BookDepository, and Indigo—all have similar differences that the owner wants to implement: the ability to search and filter manga specifically. Since manga is expensive, as much as there's an urge to collect everything, a collector should be able to pin down that specific manga that fits their budget. A website should be able to help know the manga-specific genres, demography, themes, knowing if it's a box set, debut, standalone, or a final volume, when it was or will be released, which publisher and imprint, price point, to searching using the Japanese title or abbreviation, only showing books of a specific series, and so much more.
Thankfully, with the help of so many people—manga fans and not—the database grew to more than 10,000 officially licensed volumes. It became not only a website to purchase manga locally but also visited by plenty of foreign fans as a reference regarding a specific English-licensed book.
Bots and formulas: the superior helper
No words can express my appreciation for the massive help of learning spreadsheets and databases. Having a website is efficient, but it's just a level 1 help in game terms. As aforementioned, it would've been extra helpful to have a skillset and educational background. With the surge of information every day, it has to be well organized so that thousands of online and physical store orders, payments, shipping, management of existing and addition of newly added books, the stream of backorders and pre-orders, licenses, social media marketing—and it doesn't stop as 20+ new books are released every Tuesday. Bots help with doing things automatically, such as sending mass emails and reminders and doing mass updates and changes for the database and order status.
Meanwhile, formulas help keep filtering things for searching for a specific something out of all the information. If the only available information is the ISBN—formulas automatically give everything linked to that ISBN. The result: the Tankobonbon Help Center the owner is very proud of. From the changelog to order status and incoming page tracking everything from a book to a shipment. It also helps with transparency—one of the capable solutions to decrease doubt and inquiries and increase trust. However, even though bots and formulas are more helpful than humans, the owner still has to learn, create, code, and supervise to know if whatever's running is correct.
The catch of creating a good system
Hyperfocus is an act of being totally not distracted under an intense fixation on a project or activity. While it sounds like an extraordinary skill in life since it helps to do something or acquire skills so fast and perfect that it feels superhuman, it comes with neglecting the ability to socialize (aka asking for help or letting people know they're still alive) and do the basic needs to live such as sleeping and eating—significantly deteriorating immunity amid a pandemic. It's one of the many ADHD attributes, along with impulsivity. For the owner, it lasted months and still happens from time to time—and it was not good health-wise, but the bookstore's progress grew exponentially better than expected. One of the effects of this was when the Bureau of Customs had to disinfect their offices at lunchtime; the owner was lining up outside during the hottest hour to submit documents for a couple of incoming books but passed out while in line.
Ironically, this post is another fruit of impulsivity and hyperfocus—why would I suddenly write a 2-hour essay?!
The actual survival tool
Besides the trouble and exhaustion of running a bookstore and the fact that importing is another topic of pain and expensive—codes, websites, and everything to run a "good system" without human intervention is also costly. The site and Help Center's server receive commissions; the bots, wishlist function, Bonbons, and all-things-code are not technically free; some are in a subscription model. Adding to the fact that the bookstore donates to plant trees for every couple of orders shipped, and the existence of the physical store and a no-cost free reading corner, plus the lack of a business plan, capital, investor, and having an overall high expense, are sure enough to lead the bookstore to its downfall. Profiting a few coins per book to stick to the price point is also incredibly risky, no matter how it's looked. The owner must have been pretty wealthy, in massive debt, or there's a fantastic profit behind all books? No. While the owner may not be knowledgeable about starting the bookstore, the owner is knowledgeable about its survival—manga knowledge and mathematics.
The charm of Tankobonbon may be the root of it all: that the owner was a collector knowledgeable and continuously learning enough on manga, publishing, and licensing. She may know if it's licensed, what publisher carries the book, and if it has an anime or other similar titles. Having a good foundation of knowledge helps when people are asking about stocks and availability. Is it already out of print? How is the paper quality or cover effects? Why are there chips and damages upon arrival? Was the anime faithful to the light novel? This is especially helpful on events and chat boxes when people ask using the Japanese title or its abbreviation. Is Oreshura licensed? What about Wataten? Why is VIZ Media's books cheaper than Seven Seas? Is Beastars larger than Blue Period in thickness and height? While the bookstore may be regarded as a business, the owner treats it like a side hobby, which is why prices are not profit-oriented and some stances are not business-like.
With mathematical (or numerical, rather) confidence (thanks to the owner's college course—architecture), even negatives have the potential to be positives. The owner carries a load of all expenses as an "investment," one day, it may return well enough. Stats, behavior reports, dates, times, stock percentages, exchange rates, and all things numbers are actively monitored. If it fails, we can become a library, and all stock becomes a collection, ending where we started.
The flowery path
For financial and skill-specific reasons, Tankobonbon can't hire people—and by "Tankobonbon," it's just the owner. The owner's family helps out on the physical aspect of the store, such as packing books and operating the store, but everything else is walked alone—but it's not lonely. The subtle fact that people keep visiting the site, spreading the love of manga, and sharing hauls and experiences—are good enough reasons to keep going.
It's incredible how it's okay to walk head-held-high on an unpaved road. If we continue despite the uncertainties, we'll eventually realize we paved it a long time ago with our other skills in hand.