Careers in Online Manga: The Current State of Affairs in the American Manga Industry

The key to succeeding in American manga is focus. You need to focus on your drawing process, and focus WHEN you are drawing for the best results. Don't publish your work if you don't think it's original and you're not proud of it. Keep practicing and sketching comic book pages and characters and backgrounds and props until you ARE good. 

Don't assume you'll make money at it. There is a 99.999999999% chance you won't. Making any money from manga in America is rare, let alone lots of money or online. You have to do this thing because you love it. You have to be the type who wakes up every morning in bed shouting LET'S DO THIS THING who assaults the day with more drawing and art.

As long as you're willing to do a lot of work for free and find the time to practice and work on your craft, you have all you need to make manga successfully in America.

Because sales for American manga or so low, not a lot is expected of you in terms of sales figures. 

BUT, you'd be surprised what kind of results a concerted effort with no budget can yield.

The biggest American market for manga is online for free. No one really expects much more than that currently in this comics climate. You're expected to meet deadlines of your schedule and put in your best effort at drawing manga comics pages. That is all.

Manga in America is a niche counterculture market, not a big business. Those days are gone. Now manga is closer to the indie comics and webcomics scene, as manga webcomics are still popular, if not profitable. So if you really do want to participate in the manga market in America, draw your own comics in your room or house, and publish them to a hosting site, a blog, Ink Blazers, Pixiv, DeviantART, Blogger, G+ or Tumblr, and just never give up. Slowly build your fanbase and "empire" from there. From weekly updates to your online comics publishing account. Your future in comics and how hard you work and the results of what that hard work earns you, is, of course, up to you. There won't be much (if any) profits or money in it for you, but there is a readership and rabid online fanbase waiting for you.