Pre-NYCC/NYAF 2011 with Yen Press

Hello readers! New York Comic Con/New York Anime Festival is around the corner! Hopefully, you are as excited as I am or at least curious about the event. Regardless, let me introduce you to Kurt Hassler, who is the Publishing Director of Yen Press. Previously, he was the Graphic Novel and Manga buyer for Borders Books and Music. Currently, he oversees “the publishing strategies and direction of Yen Press, manage acquisitions, maintain relationships with our publishing partners, and manage the editorial team.” Without further ado, here is the interview.

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Who else will be attending NYCC 2011 or man handling the booth?

The Yen Press editorial staff will be attending NYCC 2011. This includes our Senior Editor, JuYoun Lee, and our Assistant Editors, Tania Biswas and Abby Blackman.

What can fans expect from this year’s Yen Press booth? Will it look different compared to previous years?

No, our booth this year will look much the same as it has in years past. As we are a part of Hachette Book Group, one of the largest trade publishing houses in the country, we will be sharing our space at the show with our parent publisher.

Besides the booth, in general what other activities will Yen Press be doing: giveaways, panels, author appearance, etc.? Any freebies?

There will be various giveaways — posters, buttons, etc. -- at our booth throughout the show, and we will have our annual Yen Press panel at 12:15 of Friday in Room 1A02 where we plan to make a few new license announcements. We will also be joined by two of our phenomenal artists, Svetlana Chmakova (DRAMACON, NIGHTSCHOOL, WITCH & WIZARD) and rem (VAMPIRE KISSES, SOULLESS) who will be signing immediately following our panel. And yes, there will definitely be freebies.

Will you be promoting anything specific or new at the convention? If yes, can you tell me about it?

We’re definitely going to be focusing on some of our latest releases at the show, including the second volume of TWILIGHT: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL which releases just a few days before. Svetlana will be signing copies of the first volume of WITCH & WIZARD which officially releases this week, and rem will be on hand to sign a special New York Comic Con comic book of the first chapter of her adaptation of Gail Carriger’s SOULLESS. We’ll also have comic samplers highlighting our James Patterson manga adaptations (MAXIMUM RIDE, DANIEL X, WITCH & WIZARD) as well as comic samplers of THE INNOCENT, a new manga from Avi Arad that releases in November. So we’ve got a lot of exciting things on tap for the show.

Was there anything that Yen Press wanted to bring to the convention, but was unable to? What prevented it from happening?

There are always new announcements that we hope to make at these shows, but for one reason or another our conversations with our licensors don’t necessarily allow for it to happen in a particular timeframe. We’ll be crossing our fingers on some of these things right up until the last minute.

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Thank you Kurt for participating in the interview.
Thanks for reading.
© 2011 Linda Thai