Viz Media LLC has announced an expansion of its distribution agreement with Simon & Schuster.  Simon & Schuster has been providing retail and wholesale distribution services including warehousing, fulfillment, customer service and accounts receivable collection for Viz Media's vast array of manga titles since June of 2004.  Now Simon & Schuster will be handling sales as well with Viz Media continuing to manage Sales & Marketing on a day-to-day basis.  This agreement will not affect the distribution of Viz manga by Diamond Comic Distributors in the direct market or by specialty distributors such as Triple A Anime.

But in the bookstore market the Simon & Schuster sales team will be making in-store calls for sales of Viz books, and Viz is hoping that the S&S sales team will also be able to expand distribution of Viz manga into other newly emerging channels such as the mass-market retail arena.