@bartzbb as far as I can recall it has always been in Members only, however it was created over 1 year ago so it could have started in premium only then been moved at some point just can’t recall that far back.

As for any other reason the people you gave the link to may not have been able to access that topic, they might just not have been signed in, that’s all I can think of right now at least.

@rahul-balaggan ok thx I will change that part.

Some points I would like to make about publishing economics: This link is fairly instructive as this is Realist Hero 1 on Amazon.jp.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/How-Realist-Hero-Rebuilt-Kingdom/dp/1626929076/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1530132036&sr=8-1&keywords=realist+hero

I'd like to point out that the two major bookstores in Japan sell at B&N-style publisher rates without discount most of the time (remember pre-Amazon book buying?). This makes for a more expensive book experience, period.

Because the market is a little more than a third of the prospective US market, anything sold at mass market within a smaller economy turns out to be more expensive as the scale needs to support an author to continue writing.

(Specific as a US market matter): No other country uses agency pricing but the US. As a oversimplification, within the US, unless a contract specifically states otherwise, a vendor who purchases from a source may sell for ANY price that the vendor wants, the source has NO control over the pricing. Amazon actually got into major legal trouble (which they won) with publishers over selling books beneath the source price to Amazon (yes, you heard that right, Amazon was losing money on every sale of a book) because it had something to do with their business strategy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/technology/amazon-hachette-ebook-dispute.html

For equivalent jobs, the Japanese are paid 80% of US rates, so their purchasing power parity is less (meaning everything costs quite a bit more).

This leads to a couple of points:

The floor prices set are NOT just j-novel's prerogative: Let's say for the sake of argument that Sam wants to sell us Volume 1's at $3 in order to entice us to buy more volumes. However, he's having to work with source publishers in Japan that have strict agency models for pricing, and getting a price reduction approved requires source publisher consent. In this regard, that's not going to work as the publishers may consider volume sales to be detrimental to THEIR business model. Sam has some ability to set prices, but there is a clear floor for them. (And having to deal with Japan for academic publishing, I can't get the publishers there to have my translated textbooks sold for less even though I'm the author/editor for McGraw! I'm pretty sure that Bookwalker has the coins system as well to get around the floor pricing problem with agency pricing.)

The Japanese pay more for a lesser product than we do: All those bonuses that we get, the Japanese have to buy multiple volumes for. Also for lesser purchase parity and higher prices as stated above, they get less for more.

Somehow, there has to be a business somewhere: Look, fan translations are "free" to us consumers, but are not free to the content "creators" (and I do mean the translators, web hosting, and ancillary costs) in turns of time and attention. Not to knock on the fan translators, but who outside of the obsessed would want to tackle on some 30 volume monster like Rokujouma? Fandom can get you a couple of volumes, passion can get more, but it's only obsession (which I certainly suspect of the Rokujouma fan turned professional translator) or support that can get the large projects done, because money talks, and it has the best pickup lines.

What I expect from a publisher is transparent and fair pricing. Transparent in that prices are known information to the public, and fair in the sense that I can acquire for that price (this is not true in academic publishing where there are plenty of secret prices and discriminatory pricing models involved). J-novel fulfills the transparent and mostly fulfills the fair (because of the bonuses to Premium members that it's hard to communicate to buyers on other platforms).

As far as price increases, yes, I expect them, but in line with the general business. I do think prices should actually go to the Amazon standard $9.99 sooner than later due to inflation and consistency, but Sam runs the business as he pleases as the owner. I would also support licensing series where the source publisher demands higher prices for the books (Seven Seas) if those books sell here.

Now, look at the Amazon link for Realist Hero. That's the discounted version rather than the usual version in Kinokuniya. That's even a larger ask out of that population than us, but there's enough LN otaku to support that business. I'll do my part, and it's easier here.

@tim-saul said in Email notifications:

I only got an account for the website a few months ago, so I've never got one.

You need to subscribe separately to those.

@guspaz titleshort isn't guaranteed to be unique though, and that's only work for series, not volumes.

@hyferzftw
I really, really wish they allow you to put stuff in folders though.

It's a nightmare to go through your series when you have 50+ of them.

Seven Seas is publishing some of their titles, Freezing and How to Build a Dungeon.

Oh hell yes! Will all the books saying version 1.0 regardless of what version they actually are, that'd help heaps too.

Yeah, android app and web reader are a bit different. I hope they are made more similar in a future update. It would make the whole 'experience' more consistent.

@malachy You can import books you purchase using JNC premium credits onto your Nook.

But, like I said, you’re getting an incomplete product to an extent if you buy from vendors other than the J-Novel website.

@_08

Taking any information beyond the card number, its expiration date, and the security code on the back is optional.
It can be used in the verification process but it doesn't need to be. Basically, taking more info makes it more annoying for the user (have to type more info in, give up more personal information), but helps reduce credit card fraud for us, J-Novel Club. Every bank/credit card issuing company can have their own standards and systems about which charges to approve/disapprove. However this is the first time I've heard of one that actually required an address?
I have heard of ones that will block any internet transactions by default for brand new cards or cards issued to students, etc.

So in any case, we don't take that extra info because we don't need it to sell you what we are offering, and in 99% of cases it doesn't affect anyone's credit card processing. I'm not sure about the specific card you are attempting to use, but that's really up to the policies of your bank.

Space obviously breaks the auto-complete, just tried underscore too as that was a likely candidate for software to use as a space stand in. No luck.

Also, how are there that many Sams on here other than the boss we want to tag? All these Sam something users I've never seen post

@bananahead4 One of the feature additions I definitely want to add to the website is a listing on your account page where you can see the % of each part you've read (current and max) and reset them if you wish.

And subscribing/notifications is also right up there when it comes to feature improvements.

@mostkilz you get that with the final ebooks!

This is purely a UI limitation, because this information is actually returned to the site via the JNC API. In fact, the API response contains both the publishing date of the volume itself, plus the individual publishing dates for each eBook type (amazon/kobo/ibook/etc).

For example, if we look at For My Daughter volume 3, the API response lists a publishing date of "2017-10-24T15:00:00.000Z" for the volume itself, and "2017-10-25T07:00:00.000Z" for the ebook sellers.

There are also created/published/expiration dates for all individual parts in the volume, as well as the date that the volume's entry was created... plus lots of other dates for things.

@Sam-Pinansky : Could you add an event-listener for "storage", and update the UI when the token is set? The event would fire in all tabs except the one where the user did the initial login.

@mereck Most of the info we’ll tell you is already available on the FAQ page, other than that prepubs expire for volumes on the 15th of the month after their ebook comes out (though if the ebook comes out after the 15th of the month, the prepubs won’t expire until the month after the next).
I believe you’ll be given access to a bonus premium immediately after you sign up for the first time as a premium member too.

If you want more typos reporting then the number one thing to do is allow reporting straight from the app.

Get any ebook reader other than the kindle app on there use that to open it & it'll work straight away ??? Profit!

Or alternatively, check out the awesome free Windows/Mac/Linux eBook software Calibre, which you can use to convert the epub into an Amazon format.