from ANNThe Publishers Weekly trade periodical reports that Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will publish Nagaru Tanigawa's Haruhi Suzumiya light novels in English starting in April of 2009. The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is the first of the nine volumes, and the main inspiration for anime series of the same name. Little, Brown Books acquired the series from Kadokawa Shoten in a joint venture with Yen Press, who also revealed today that it will be publishing the manga version of the novels in North America. (Both companies are imprints of Hachette Book Group USA.) The first novel volume will be released in a US$8.99 trade paperback version and a US$16.99 hardcover version. 4.5 million novel copies and 1.5 million manga copies have been sold in Japan.With the recent English light novels boom I was wondering why the hell didn't anyone pick up Haruhi (which is THE light novel series). with this recent news now I'm wondering if there wasn't fierce bidding war for it :)And it looks like they plan to push it heavilyOur goal is to make Haruhi a household name...and through LBYR, it will get the same marketing and publicity support of any other major prose launch from one of the biggest and most reputable children's publishers in the country.There will even be a hardcover edition!Now... somebody license Spice and Wolf as well as Baccano, please? ^_^
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