Tentai Books 2022 Q4, and an apology

Hey there everyone! Alex here with some news about what’s going on, and our plans for the future.

First of all, I want to publicly apologize for what has transpired this year in general with Tentai Books. There have been delays related to pretty much… everything, to say the least. However, my intention is to not only be committed to fixing these issues, but to be open and explain the reasons behind these delays so everyone knows what’s going on.

First of all, to get it out of the way. Personally, this hasn’t been a good year for me. I’ve gone through multiple tragedies within my personal life, and I have this big issue: whenever I feel stressed or heavily pressured, I tend to neglect duties and other commitments that I should honestly be working on, such as shipments, translation, and other kinds of work. I am the main reason for this slog, and I sincerely do want to apologize for the radio silence these past few months.

The second and most important:  the new series carried a massive workload that I didn’t account for, and one that has been overwhelming me over the past few months, specifically related to the production of physicals regarding these new titles — Our new deal with the distributor has been a godsend to us, but the requirements we’ve been required to fulfill in terms of inventory have been a massive undertaking, and between the multiple delays from our printing partner in the USA and the new price hikes, it has dealt a massive economic blow to us. 

Fortunately, the shipments finally arrived last week, but a process that should’ve lasted two months at most has been dragging itself on for six, and that obviously not only is a bad look on our distributing partners and their trust in us, but most importantly, a loss of trust placed on us by our customers, those who purchase our products in our website, and for those delays and the ones that are still in place for shipments, I profusely apologize.

After experiencing this situation, I’m personally making sure to enact some very needed changes in our policies from now on, as well as making some very needed changes in our dynamic as a business.

  1. Our priorities right now lie with:
    1. Making sure customers receive their products.
    2. Preparing new titles to release.
    3. Regain everyone’s trust in us.
  2. Our focus regarding new licensing will be different. We’ll be reducing our simultaneous series to just two, at most three. For this to happen, we’re focusing on completing some of the series & books we have lingering at the moment, those being Ice Queen 2, World Teacher 2 & 3, Diner 3, You Like Me 2, Sister Kiss 2, 3, 4, and Side Character 4, and 5. We’re currently not actively licensing and we will not pursue new titles until we clear the ones we currently have.
  3. To prevent physical preorder issues, we will no longer issue physical preorders of our books until they are already produced and ready to ship. This will mean that the delay between digital and physical releases will widen, but this is done to ensure better products and better customer service.
  4. We’re in the process of looking for someone who can take care of our social media and communications, so everyone can stay updated.
  5. We’re in the process of building a new website, with better functionalities than the one we currently have. 
  6. Last but not least, we want to add our books to all platforms consistently, along with adding new ones such as apple books. This will be done ASAP.
  7. We have a new support mail, as the one we had until now hasn’t been working properly for many weeks. It’s “support @tentaibooks.com” Send all inquiries there from now on.

Like we mentioned in a previous post, it is still our intention to apply consumer-friendly policies, such as the free digital access to our books if physical copy is purchased. (We intend to apply this once the new website is up).

As for upcoming releases this year, over the next week we’ll be pinning down exact dates, but just to make things clear, our intention is to release over the course of this year and early next year (these titles are either completely ready for release, or close to be completely ready):

  • Seatmate Killer 2 (20th of December)*
  • Side Character 4
  • World Teacher 2 & 3
  • You Like me don’t you 2 (29th of November)*
  • Diner of the Exiled 3
  • Ice Queen 2 (31st of october)*
  • Sister Kiss 2

*All these dates are for digital releases.

Regarding Toxic Classmate, we’re in the process of negotiating future volumes, but our partner will not handle subsequent volume rights to us until we release some of the titles previously listed. Apologies for this delay in particular.

To close this post, I mainly wanna touch on our unwavering commitment to offer the best quality physical products and translations, thus we will also make sure that, once things stabilize and titles have been released, we become a company that focuses more on quality releases instead of fast ones, to ensure the best experience for those who read them.

If you have any questions to the team or me personally, we’re available on the Tentai Books Discord, and soon enough actively on all social media as well.

Have a good one!