The basic idea is thus: if enough fans pre-order a June book reaches a particular dollar amount goal, they will issue a limited run of the books for the pre-order-ers, potentially months prior to the book's intended release date.
Now, this won't necessarily be available for all of June's titles. In fact, it's currently only available for one: the first volume of a yaoi novel series titled All You Need Is Love. But it's certainly a fascinating idea...I'll be getting in touch with DMP in hopes of hearing about the reactions thus far, and more information.
Brigid over at MangaBlog notes that this is a system that might not work at all outside of the yaoi niche, which features particularly devoted fans in terms of buying, whereas a lot of manga fans will simply pirate the titles that they want early.
On the other hand-- is this a program that has a “cost” associated with setting it up? If not, it seems to me entirely plausible that more mainstream manga could be done this way; either they reach the dollar level necessary or they don't.
In any case, it'll be interesting to see how it pans out. Yaoi fans, will you be preordering this book?
