After a year in which it suspended publication of most of its manga list, Central Park Media has revamped its manga program, hired a new director of sales, restored suspended series and outlined plans to use technology to market its manga.

Last month, CPM hired Ali Kokmen, a 12-year veteran of New York trade publishing who last worked for HarperCollins as director of book sales. Kokmen says that "a lot of publishers are interested in graphic novels and manga. But it's a lot of fun to be able to do books for an established manga company that's not trying to teach itself [the category]." After a period in which many manga publishers saw their first significant returns, John O'Donnell, managing director of CPM, says the house needed a new approach. O'Donnell pointed to one month earlier this year in which 400 manga titles were released—hence the murmurs of "manga glut" throughout the industry.

Central Park Media is primarily an importer and distributor of anime. But CPM is also one of the country's oldest publishers of Japanese manga, licensing titles such as Kia Asamiya's Dark Angel and the lighthearted Comic Party (by multiple artists), as well as Korean manhwa titles like Hyun Se Lee's Nambul: War Stories. CPM also publishes the popular yaoi (boy-love) series Kizuna: Bonds of Love, under its Be Beautiful imprint. Indeed, yaoi has proved so popular that CPM continued publishing its yaoi list.

O'Donnell says Kokman was hired to address changes in the manga market, specifically a dramatic and steady increase in the number of titles being published. As O'Donnell tells it, "It used to be that a book would be on a [bookstore] shelf for six months. You'd wait for it to come out in stores and then publicize it." Now, he says, "it's more like a movie. You do the promotion first, create brand awareness, then move out the product."

Next year CPM will publish 40-50 manga titles and utilize tech-heavy promotion. Over the years, CPM has developed ways of integrating the marketing and promotion of manga and anime. The company's Web site (www.centralparkmedia.com) features animated visual collages of its manga titles that act like movie trailers, the same method the house uses to introduce an anime series to new viewers. The manga trailers can be downloaded onto Apple's video iPod or Sony's PSP. Readers can also access portions of their favorite books either on the company's Web site or through Bit Torrent shareware. The first 57 pages of Duck Prince are available to readers, as is the complete first volume of the comic manhwa series Couple. While many companies are skeptical of "giving away", CPM heartily embraces it. "Share the wealth," O'Donnell says. "The more exposure, the more likely people are to buy it."

In January CPM will release six books of the Nambul: War Stories series, volume 2 of Sword of Shibuto and new titles Tag You're It (renamed from Zzimm!) and Princess 1. In February, the company will continue its yaoi program, introducing Play Boy Blues) by Shiuko Kano, and publishing volume 3 of Youka Nitta's Embracing Love). And look for CPM to bring Nitta to New York for the first annual New York Comic-con in February.

Kokmen said his knowledge of bookstore selling cycles will be especially useful to CPM, a manga publisher that has a lot more experience selling product in the video market. "These guys know what they're doing," Kokmen says, but "I know manga."