Being a Manga Letterer Is More Than Having a Fun Job

The job of a manga letterer is a collaborative process between publishers and translators where typesetters bring together all the minutiae of text folks would read in a manga.

Letterers are localizing everything from restaurant signs to handwritten love letters.

The act of erasing and redrawing manga art is often referred to as retouching.

A weekly 19 or 20 -page series can pay a letterer $4-20 per page depending on the publisher and scope of the work.

A monthly volume can take 30-50 hours on the light end, and 70-100 hours to complete within a month ’s deadline.

Depending on how demanding the project is, monthly pay can wildly vary, with rates at $ 1,000 (or lower) to $ 2,000 .

Fakku , the largest English hentai manga and doujinshi publisher, is one of the only places that hires letterers full-time.

Most manga letterers are contract workers or freelancers who try to make ends meet by supplementing their income with a second job.

Getting paid in unpredictable timeframes makes the cycle of finding more work and paying bills a stressful ordeal.