eBook Separate Volume Edition: What It Is, Pros and Cons

What is a “Bunsatsuban” (Split Edition) in E-books

Among e-books, “Bunsatsuban” (split edition) is often adopted in business magazines and comics. A “Bunsatsuban” is a method of selling a “single book” by “splitting” it into parts.
For example, in the case of comics, most volumes contain multiple episodes. Selling just one of these episodes is called a “Bunsatsuban.”
In business magazines, there tends to be a division by “each feature” or “a combination of several features” to create a “Bunsatsuban.” For instance, they may split and sell issues such as “XXX Business Feature” or “XX Useful Tools Feature.”

Advantages of “Bunsatsuban” E-books

Lower unit price

The advantage of split edition e-books is that the price can be made lower. For example, a digital comic is currently priced around 500 yen as the standard, but a split edition usually costs around 80–100 yen per episode.
Recently, because some episodes are made available for free on manga apps, being able to continue reading at a lower price when you “just want to read a little further” is a welcome point.

Access to the latest story before comic release

Since “Bunsatsuban” is sold by episode, it is possible to purchase the latest story in manga apps operated by comic publishers.
Until now, the only way to follow the latest story was to buy weekly magazines, but with the emergence of the split edition, you can now read the latest story at 80–100 yen, cheaper than a weekly magazine.

Decide whether to continue at a low cost

When you discover a manga for the first time through a free manga app, there are cases where “you are curious about continuing, but you have already read up to a certain point in the app,” or “it looks interesting, but you hesitate to buy the comic outright.” In such cases, split editions are useful.
For example, if volume 1 of a comic contains 8 episodes, and you read 6 of them for free in an app, you can purchase just the remaining 2 episodes in split editions, then buy the comic version later, thus saving costs.
Furthermore, manga follows story arcs, so with split editions, you can read “until the end of this arc” and then decide whether to buy the comic version after that.

Use of points

Manga apps and e-book stores grant points, but often not enough to buy an entire comic book.
However, since split editions are lower in unit price, you can use soon-to-expire points to read the continuation of a manga you are interested in and consume them effectively.

Disadvantages of “Bunsatsuban” E-books

From the perspective of those who buy comics, one might think, “If one comic volume contains about 8 episodes, aren’t split editions more expensive?” This is the disadvantage of split editions.
If the price of a split edition was “the comic’s list price divided by the number of episodes,” it wouldn’t be a disadvantage, but in many cases, the price is set about 30% higher than “the comic’s list price divided by the number of episodes.”
Therefore, if you plan to buy the comic anyway, you should buy the comic version rather than the split edition.