Two exciting announcements today!

As you may know, in Japan Math Girls is not only a series of novels, but also of comics. The comic adaptation of the original Math Girls novel was serialized in the Japanese manga magazine Comics Flapper (published by Media Factory) between April 2008 and June 2009, and was drawn by Mika Hisaka under the supervision of Math Girls author Hiroshi Yuki. When the series had finished its run, the stories were collected into a two-volume set of books and published separately.

Today we’re happy to announce that Bento Books will be translating and publishing the comics! While we haven’t set a release date yet, we’re hoping to have the translation of the first volume available for sale by August.

One of the significant issues we’re facing regarding this release is the form in which to publish it. We will definitely be releasing a digital version (via the Math Girls iPad app, and probably in other formats). We’ll also be releasing a printed version using the same print-on-demand suppliers that we used for the Math Girls novel. We’ve stumbled across one problem, though—the original comics included several color pages in each volume that we’d love to reproduce, but that our print-on-demand solution can’t handle.

Duplicating those pages requires offset printing, which entails significant upfront cost. Add to that professional lettering, cover design work, and other costs associated with publishing a book, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.

Rather than give up and just publish in black and white, we’ve decided to try crowdfunding the project through Kickstarter. If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, we’ll be printing a limited edition of the comic with the color pages intact. We’ve also arranged for some pretty cool pledge awards, so please take a minute to check it out!

Click here to visit the Math Girls comic Kickstarter campaign page!

Since releasing our translation of Hiroshi Yuki’s Math Girls last November, we’ve had many requests for a digital edition other than our iPad app. The app has some nice features, like super-high zoom resolutions for those hard-to-read subscripts, and support for right-to-left page directions for the upcoming comics edition, but we understand that some people prefer to read in Kindle and iBooks format. Unfortunately, those platforms couldn’t (gracefully) handle the equations and diagrams in Math Girls.

Well, it looks like digital publishing platforms are finally starting to mature with regard to displaying math—on the iPad, at least. Apple recently announced a set of extensions to the iBooks file format that allows high-res display of mathematical equations and various other features that we felt were essential to a digital release. iBooks also adds some nice features like highlighting, note-taking, and review flashcards with key terms from each chapter. You can even see pop-up definitions of math terms while reading and tap a button to get more in-depth information from a web search or Wikipedia page.

We’re therefore happy to announce that Math Girls is now available for iBooks with all of those features. If you have an iPad and live in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, or Australia, please check it out. The first two chapters are available as a free downloadable sample, which will let you try out the new features for yourself.

Click on the “Continue Reading” link to see some screenshots!

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A quick post to share a wonderful video review of Math Girls by real-life Math Girls Joanne and Amanda Manaster!

You can read more from Joanne Manaster at her blog, Joanne Loves Science. Thanks, Joanne!

We’ve been getting many inquiries asking where you can buy Math Girls, so this post is a summary of what we know right now.

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A quick post to share this cute bit of art from @mmiuki (Twitter), a.k.a. Miyuki Matsuzaki, the comic artist who did the manga version of the third book in the series, commemorating the release of our English translation of Math Girls!

MG fan art from mmiuki

We’re thrilled to announce that Hiroshi Yuki’s Math Girls is now on sale!

We’re still calling this a “Fibonacci day” release, but due to huge demand from the country of the book’s birth we timed the release for the start of 11/23, Japan time.

The trade paperback edition of the book is currently available from our CreateSpace page.  The iPad app version is also available from the Apple App Store.

There’s been a slight delay with the hardcover edition, but it should be available within a week or so. Title information has been submitted to amazon.com, but it can take up to ten days to appear online. The book should also eventually be available on bn.com, amazon.co.uk, and other US and international sites. We’ll post a link to those as soon as we see them come available (and if you notice availability before we do, please feel free to leave a comment here, or drop us a line!)

This is an exciting day for all of us at Bento Books! We hope you enjoy reading Math Girls as much as we enjoyed translating, editing, and publishing it!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we’ve finally created Google+ pages.

If you use Google+, please add the Bento Books page and the Math Girls page to your circles!

Things are wrapping up, and we’re in the final stages of getting Math Girls ready to print. We’re now confident enough of completion dates to announce that Math Girls will go on sale on Fibonacci Day (11/23)!

We’re releasing Math Girls in hardcover (ISBN 978-0-9839513-1-5), trade paperback (ISBN 978-0-9839513-0-8), and digitally via an iPad app. Retail price is $24.99 for hardcover, $14.99 for paperback, and $9.99 on the iPad.

Upon release, Math Girls should be available from several sources. The first to go live will probably be our CreateSpace page, so bookmark that page if you want to be one of our first readers! (Buying the book here also cuts the middlemen out of the commission loop, which better compensates the author and should help us bring out more titles in the future.) It will also be available from amazon.com, bn.com, and other major online sellers, as well as via special order from most bookstores.

For our readers who prefer a digital version, the iPad app will be available from the App Store, just look for Bento Books or Math Girls. The app will be a free download containing the same sample available here on our website, and allow you to buy the full book as an in-app purchase for $9.99 (in the US app store—pricing in international App Stores will be according to Apple’s standard conversion rates).

We’re really excited about the Math Girls release, and hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed translating and publishing it!

Daniel Pink, NYT and WSJ best-selling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind has reviewed Math Girls, and apparently he liked what he saw!

Sometimes the math goes over your head—or at least my head. But that hardly matters. The focus here is the joy of learning, which the book conveys with aplomb.

We’ve hoped from the beginning that interest in Math Girls would reach beyond the traditional niche of “math books,” and Mr. Pink’s kind words are a good sign we’re on the right track.

We’re putting some final polish on the book right now, and should be announcing availability information within the next few weeks. Use the links on the right to follow us on Twitter, at Facebook, or by RSS to ensure that you don’t miss the announcement!

A wonderful thing came in the mail today…