@destruxio I completely agree I'm still vary much enjoying all the books to read and have been loving having some series on catch-up as I've been able to get into more books that I didn't want to buy the first book just to figure out if I would like it or not.

@lokison Hey there! I don't believe there is a dedicated discussion about titles members would like to see in print, so you're free to start one if you wish! J-Novel Club doesn't comment on whether a given series is under consideration for print, though. Sam has said publicly that the ebook sales necessary to justify print is 2000 per volume, though.

@korppi Interestingly, the Yen Press website still links to both Kobo and Amazon to purchase digital versions of No Game No Life. I got interested in checking it because the Carbon Sequestering Edition of V9 has been on back order at RightStuf for months.

Heck I'm in America right now in a part that doesn't follow daylight savings so who the heck knows what's going on when some people decide to change a clock and others don't. Then again since I follow more of the "sun's up time to work; sun's down time to play" schedule the actual "time" isn't as critical.

@rahul-balaggan I suspected that was because of something idiotic, didn't know the idiocy came from Amazon. Well, I allways edit all my epubs anyway, just bringing the illustration forward is easy on Sigil.

@myskaros Just went to the topic and you are already handling the issues I'm having with the new website so this topic is redundant. Please feel free to lock or delete this topic and thanks for pointing me towards the correct topic venue.

@zwabbit ok, yeah, that's a good point. The description I gave applies to Michigan. Indeed, every state does it differently.

@Kevin-S said in Questions about a translator's career:

It seems reasonable to suspect that the market for translation into Finninsh is probably smaller than the market for translation into, say, English, but that's something you won't really know until you get out there. So while remaining realistic about your prospects, I'd urge you not to dismiss anything out of hand.

True enough. At least for English/Finnish, large amount of my doubts stem from the fact Finnish people (aside from older generations) usually have a very strong grasp of written English, but of course it doesn't necessarily mean there isn't any English/Finnish translation work around. And I do have a lot more hope for the Japanese/Finnish market.

It sounds like you have a pretty good attitude (and situation) as regards this. Remember that especially as a freelancer, there's a process of building up. There's a good chance you won't just show up and start making enough money; instead, you'll take projects as they come (or, more importantly, as you go out find them) and build a list of steady clients, and after a while you'll have reliable sources of work and income. The build-up is the phase where having a safety net like your family to fall back on really comes in handy. Just remember not to panic if you don't see the amount of money you're hoping for in the first months or even years.

Thank you very much for the advice, I'll definitely keep it in mind for the future for when I'm ready to start making a career.

This is a big, big question, and no two people completely agree on the answer, so I'm not going to go too far into it here. Suffice to say that machine translation (MT) clearly will have some kind of effect on the market. Some people hold that "humanities"-type fields like literature (including light novels) are immune to too much competition from MT, on the assumption that machines will never learn to capture nuance with the precision of a human translator, and/or that they won't effectively cope with facets of the Japanese language like subject omission. To a certain extent that may be true, but having seen the way technology has developed over just the last couple of decades, I'm not prepared to say anything is outside the realm of possibility. At the very least, cases in which human translators edit MT output, rather than translating from scratch, seem likely to increase, especially in fields where there's anything like boilerplate.

Having said all that, I've seen at least one person argue that much of the effect of MT will come in the form of market expansion, with MT opening up new projects and possibilities. In other words, it could make the pie bigger, instead of simply consuming what's already there. Again, no one can be sure. It's a good thing to keep in mind and keep an eye on, but the most we can say is that it's something we (translators) will have to adapt to as the technology develops, whatever form it ultimately takes.

I see... I guess we'll just have to wait and see whether the pie will become smaller or bigger and by how much. Thanks for your thoughts on the matter. For now, I've seen fan translations of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime with MT output and human editor, but the quality certainly wasn't something that would be acceptable by any publishers - yet, I was still surprised by how readable it was.

Ice cream, not beer?

@Shiny I've never done a side-by-side but a couple of editors have pointed out before that often the pre-pub doesn't get updated from corrections found and reported here unless it's something major like the wrong images being included. I can certainly say at least that I've found plenty issues in stuff I've read when I do check out catch-ups, so that checks out.

@Liber-Monstrorum I have 3 premium preorders and an awful lot of other preorders.

@pcj said in Would JNC be interested in publishing original light novel-style books?:

I've seen quite a few of these on Amazon Kindle, usually direct-published there by the author.

I have to poke around a bit more if that's the case. I knew these types of books did exist, but I admit I haven't looked much into it. I feel like self publishing won't get me anywhere. It's something I have to decide if I really want to pursue or not (you know, sunken cost fallacy and all that).

@myskaros said in Would JNC be interested in publishing original light novel-style books?:

@TriteHexagon As pcj guessed, we are primarily a translation company and we're not looking to expand into traditional publishing at the moment.

I assumed that was the case, but thanks for letting me know. That said, if you ever change your mind feel free to contact me ;)

Hello,

Wortenia is currently on an extended break.

Please refer to the translator’s post for more information: https://forums.j-novel.club/post/97921

As of right now there is no set date for V9 to start pre-publication, your patience is appreciated.

@pcj Ah yes thanks for reminding me. I forgot how email attachments work. I guess in a hypothetical system to send MOBIs, you'd have to just keep downscaling the images until you get to a resolution that's under ~37MB

Please refer to this topic regarding the release of future volumes:

https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3478/future-volume-release-schedule

Man, that was a fun show. Good vybes all around from watching it: I really hope they take jab at the novels.

I heard "The Irresponsible Galaxy Tylor" is also based on the novels, but my heart sunk watching that (what the hell was that anyway?).

Thank you for all of the responses.
But to expound on a couple of items:

I never said anything about any j-novel employee, my comments are directed at the company and it’s management that bear the responsibility for the operation of the company. The people doing the “front line “ work are either usually hourly or contract employees. It is the company that decides how many people to hire and how many to assign to a project, how to staff departments, and what backup plans to implement when something goes wrong.

It’s fine that j-novel is in an industry where people can be so patient and forgiving, but most of us work at companies where there is intense domestic and foreign competition And struggle to make it from quarter to quarter.

Most companies have customers that require adherence to deadlines. I’ve never heard one of our customers say that it was OK to be “a little late”. In fact, if we’re late we lose money and people get laid off or fired. In addition, peoples lives and livelihoods depend on us doing our job correctly...and on time.

So, in retrospect, a COMPANY’s number one obligation is to shareholders and investors (the ones who actually own the company), the second responsibility is to the employees (the ones doing the work and who need support), and the third obligation is to it’s customers (the ones who keep everyone employed). The third area is where j-novel needs to improve. So, I’m sorry if some of you take offense, but if companies don’t get constructive criticism and told where they need to improve, they’ll never do it. Also if they don’t have competition, they get stagnant and don’t improve. Remember how crappy American made cars were getting before the Japanese auto industry started “invading” the US with their well made and RELIABLE vehicles. There was even talk of American car companies going out of business due to the competition.

Companies need to be told how and where to improve or they will never do it and will ultimately fail.

I like j-Novel; I look forward to their releases; I don’t want them to fail and go out of business.

But you gotta get better...
Others will see the opportunity and take it and compete against you.

Old Saying - “In Africa every lion knows it needs to be faster than the slowest gazelle or it won’t eat that day. Every gazelle knows it needs to be faster than the fastest lion or it dies that day.”