During the 2009 Graphic Novel Conference held in early February, ICv2  presented its annual white paper which looked at the past year of the graphic novel market in North America. ICv2 Founder Milton Griepp made the presentation.

The part dealing specifically about manga had the following points:

North American publishers released a total of 1372 individual volumes in 2008.
A drop of about 9% from 2007’s 1513 volumeICv2’s projection.
The projection for 2009, down 17% from 2007,  is for 1224 volumes to be released.  Actual sales figures roughly at the levels seen in 2005

Mr. Griepp stated that in his opinion the reason for the drop in sales was due to these big factors:

The overall effect of the economic recession.
Anime, which has a large part in driveing manga sales, recently has had a lower visibility on broadcasted television and cable.
Mr. Griepp mentioned the decrease in anime shows on Adult Swim.
The changing graphic novel order policy of the bookstore chain Borders.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, well not the Ugly!

While manga sales were down by 17% last year, overall graphic novel sales were up by $20 million (US)…$375 million in 2007 to $395 million in 2008. The non-manga graphic novel market grew by about 33%, driven primarily by the Batman and Watchmen graphic novels.

  Which at the same time is also good news because it means graphic novels popularity as a whole is going up. This is good news for the future of manga, which currently has 55% of all graphic novel titles.

Check out the BookScan Graphic Novels sales chart for January

ANN Report: ICv2 Graphic Novel White Paper