Call me old school because I love to buy manga in print whenever I have the chance. In fact, most of my recent manga purchases are the print version.

Just like everyone else, I love buying books through my Kindle app because of how convenient it is. I’m pretty sure that you can relate to that, especially since most manga that is currently available on the market are available digitally as well.

Not only that, buying the digital edition of the manga solved the storing problems for those who don’t have large enough space to keep the manga.

As much as I favor the convenience of buying manga with a single click and read it right away, it’s still better for you to consider purchasing the manga in print.

It’s even more important to buy the manga in print if it happens to be your favorite manga.

It has nothing to do with the nostalgic feeling

Some of us still prefer to buy the manga in print or any print book in general because we just love the idea of holding a physical book.

But that’s not the reason why I’m encouraging you to buy the manga in print, though.

The reason for that has a lot to do with the ownership.

Some of you are already aware that buying manga in digital format or any book for that matter doesn’t necessarily mean that you own it.

Sure, you can argue that you pay for the manga. But what you’re paying is the license to have the manga downloaded into your device and read it.

Regardless of how much you pay for the manga, the only thing you get is the license to read the manga. You don’t necessarily own a copy of it.

That explains why Kindle limits the number of people you can allow to lend your copy of the book. If you truly own it, they won’t be limiting the number of people you want to share the manga with.

If you favor ownership and love the idea of wanting to share your manga collection with someone else, then it’s a no-brainer to get your favorite manga in print.

The digital license limitation doesn’t stop there

Let’s say you currently live in the US and you’re about to move to Australia soon.

If you’re the kind of person who buys everything from Amazon, the good news is you can still buy things from Amazon through Amazon Australia.

And that includes Kindle books.

Here’s where things can get messy.

If you’ve been buying manga through Amazon Kindle US Store, you may not be able to read the manga that you purchased from Amazon US Kindle Store when you’re moving to Australia.

The reason for that is because of the territory licensing.

If you’ve been keeping up with anime and manga industry for a while, you should already know that they’re a big supporter of the region-lock contents.

It was this reason why you can only watch certain anime on Crunchyroll. And it was also this reason why you can’t purchase some books from the Kindle store. There’s a high chance that the books are only licensed for a specific region.

If you ever noticed that you can’t buy your favorite manga on Amazon, then it’s possible that the manga is only licensed for that region only.

Same goes for the manga that you purchased in the past. It’s possible that you won’t be able to read it even if you purchase it initially.

Manga pricing is weird

Most books, even by the traditional publishers tend to have different pricing for the digital and print version.

For the most part, the digital version tends to be much cheaper than the print version. So, many people choose to buy the digital version of the book for that reason.

But for the manga, the price for the digital and the print version doesn’t differ that much.

I can’t say for sure why they choose to opt for such pricing. But I can guess that it may have something to do with the high delivery cost associated with the large file size. After all, the file size for the manga tends to be much bigger than books with words alone.

If you think that the publishers set such price just to discourage you from buying the digital version of the manga, it’s too bad that’s not the case at all.

They still make money even if you buy the digital version of the manga. Perhaps a lot more than the print version.

Thinking that opting for the similar price for the print and the digital version of the manga for that reason doesn’t make sense at all.

How you can save money when you buy the manga in print

The downside of purchasing manga in print is you have to pay for the shipping. And it doesn’t help that the shipping can be expensive because it costs more to ship something bulky like books.

The shipping cost won’t cause a dent in your pocket if you’re buying just one manga. But what if you’ve decided to buy the whole series?

There’s a high chance that the shipping cost is probably a lot more than the total cost of the series itself.

If you want to save money on the shipping cost, then my recommendation is to buy manga from Wordery since they offer free shipping worldwide.

Speaking of Wordery, you can also buy my books at Wordery as well. If the idea of saving tons of money on shipping is perfect for you, you can then head over here to begin with your manga shopping spree:

Buy manga at Wordery

How important is the book ownership to you

If book ownership matters to you, then it’s better for you to get your favorite manga in print. Sure, the manga will fill your space in no time. But at least you can safely and proudly say you own it.