ANN recently interviewed Kurt Hassler, one of the founders of Yen Press (the company that is releasing the Haruhi light novels in English). During their interview, they turned to the subject of Haruhi. That portion of the interview can be read below.

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Let’s talk about Haruhi. There’s an interesting story there that lots of people don’t know. How did you get that license?

Well, obviously it was something everybody wanted to be a part of. For us, we approached the property very much as a whole. Being aware of the light novel market in the U.S. and the challenges that it has seen, as well as the attempts that other publishers have made, we really looked to our sister company, Little Brown. We already had some success as a manga publisher, so everybody knew we could handle that piece of it. Because the novels are the source material, though, obviously that was the main focus of the Japanese licensors. We really approached it in terms of a joint venture between Yen Press and Little Brown Books For Young Readers saying, “Look, we have the expertise in this arena. We also have one of the most successful children’s publishing divisions in the market, and demographically, if you’re looking at who this is going to appeal to, this is very much a book for young readers. This is our corporate area of expertise and we can leverage our expertise in each portion of this. It’s going to be better for the license as a whole.” Ultimately, that was a very compelling argument for Kadokawa.
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Do you think if it hadn’t been for the relationship between Little Brown and Yen Press that Yen Press could have gotten the license?

I think we probably could have. I think we still would have been competitive in terms of our approach. I think at the end of the day, that was one of the things that put us over the top. You have to use all of the resources available at your disposal.

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Are you personally involved with the publishing of the light novels?

Absolutely. Everything from the cover designs to the translation. I have a hand in the whole thing.

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Between the manga and the light novels, which one do you expect to sell more, by what kind of ratios?

Ratios are hard to say. I expect the novel is going to outsell the manga, which is aggressive since the manga has already been a best seller in the market. It’s been hugely successful even in a year when everyone is sort of trembling. I do expect that the novels are going to do better than the manga. Ultimately, the goal is to drive fans between the two mediums. In the novel, there is an excerpt of the manga; in the first volume of the manga, there is an excerpt of the novel.

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Are you doing any co-promotion with Bandai Entertainment?

We have talked to Bandai. We’re just sort of looking at what the best areas are. Since Bandai already has their material in the market, it’s a little tougher, but they’ve provided us with some material for the web. We’re preparing to launch a website that will count down to the book release. We definitely want to work with them. It’s just that when something’s already fully in existence in the market, it makes that co-promotion a little more difficult, but we always like to work with the other vendors as much as we can.

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The rest of the inverview can be found here.

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Yen Press has, thus far, released the first three Haruhi light novels in English, with the fourth due in October. Their website can be found here.