J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker
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So, I'm guardedly optimistic.
Kadokawa investing in JNC (hopefully) means that IP (Intellectual Properties) that are Kadokawa's (whatever moderately popular anime is out this season), JNC now has a shot at (and they really didn't before). I have no particular issues with Yen Press or Yen On, but they are nowhere near as nimble as JNC is, and I love JNC's business model (serial pre-pubs, active forums etc)how many titles in the suggestion forums were basically 'hopeless' because they were Kadokawa's IP? (I'm thinking a bunch)
so here is my wish list of 'synergies' I'm hopeful about:
- access to some of the printing infrastructure at Hachette = more hard copy titles. (super deluxe stab bound bookworm fan book?)
- access to some of the licenses that (maybe) Yen Press holds that they haven't gotten around to translating yet
- capital ($$) to build better apps /websites with (better)API's from JNC into bookwalker - bookwalker has an epub reader JNC app/library currently does not
- less beholden to Amazon (?)
- (edited to add) some kind of synergy with Sony (who owns a minor stake in Kadokawa- and a major stake in Funimation, and is in the process of acquiring Crunchyroll) More Anime and 'Merch' for IP that JNC translates???
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Everything answered basically boiled down to nothing really it seems. Like, JNC might get some data from BW in their licensing talks? But nothing really publicly recognizable at this stage.
I guess my questions would be:
- Any chance for bringing the BW exclusive perks to the JNC editions. I know How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord and Arifureta had them.
- What is the time frame before we actually see some kind of positive effect of the acquisition? Can we also get some kind of announcement when there is one that consumers can readily recognize? (Stuff like Kadokawa licensing doors being open, faster licensing pipeline, getting Premium Epubs for YP series, etc.) The reason there is a lot of general worry or confusion is that there isn't really much clear in the way of what both sides get from this acquisition that is supposed to directly benefit consumers. So having some kind of announcement when something does happen would help.
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People have been asking for ages for JNC to sell non-premium non-DRM epubs without a monthly fee, but they probably never will. There must be good reasons behind the scenes for that, because even if they sold it for the same price as Amazon, they'd make more because Amazon wouldn't be taking a cut. There's got to be more to them not doing it than blind greed.
So, since they seemingly can't do that, I'm sure they know that no matter how badly treated they've been by Amazon, that if they drop Amazon then their digital sales will dry up. After all, Amazon sells more ebooks than the rest of 'em combined.
It's doubtful that the average buyer will sign up for their expensive membership plans. So, I wouldn't worry too much. Unless they decide to ditch digital for print books, they basically have to keep selling on Amazon if they want to stay in business.
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I just caught up with the announcements (weird me being late, considering I'm in South East Asia).
Just wanted to say I'm more than happy that things stay the same. You and your crew do good work as always, Sam.
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As long as they don't change even one bit about the premium ebooks...
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I do wonder what this will mean going forward for what books are published. Now that Kadakawa owns both JNC and Yen Press how will they determine which books go where. Do they even need two separate English light novel publishers, I mean I know there are differences between the two but I still feel theirs some redundancy here.
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Now the question remains.
If IPs yet to come to English will have it easier or...god forbid, harder. :monkaS:
It'd be neat if certain JP only LN books get an EN release too, like ones you can't ever get as a normal product. -
Crazy how time flies and seeing how successful this venture became. Super happy to see the massive success and the continuation of the proliferation of fast access of Light Novels in the West.
Hopefully this Business Partnership has positive effects and leads to potential licenses that were unavailable in the past.
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@bartzbb and here I was hoping that Kadokawa could smoothen things out with AlphaPolis.
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@aruseus493 said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
What is the time frame before we actually see some kind of positive effect of the acquisition? Can we also get some kind of announcement when there is one that consumers can readily recognize? (Stuff like Kadokawa licensing doors being open, faster licensing pipeline, getting Premium Epubs for YP series, etc.) The reason there is a lot of general worry or confusion is that there isn't really much clear in the way of what both sides get from this acquisition that is supposed to directly benefit consumers. So having some kind of announcement when something does happen would help.
I doubt we'll see this spelled out. Companies don't usually 'show how the sausage is made'. We'll have to speculate (in the future) if something that happens is fruit from the merger or not.
One thing that I'm speculating is that because the press releases emphasized JNC's "digital first" strategy we'll see that leveraged. There might me future IP that'll be marketed as a JNC title in pre-pub and ePub, but marketed differently in hard copy (maybe jointly as 'Yen Press'?) Hachette has some big influence in the printed book marketplace.
This might also be a prelude to a digital weekly/monthly new product. In Japan periodicals of (multiple) serialized manga/LN printed under various 'hobby' or 'bunko' titles are popular. Could there be a JNC digital magazine?
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Man, would be great if there could be some collab in the future now between YP and JNC. This could make some YP titles release faster digitally (looking at you Youjo Senki, Tensura and Re:Zero!).
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@otonokakuei
hiring away some editors/managers from JNC to YP? consolidating translation practices? Whatever the 'secret sauce' is that JNC has that allows for FAST, HIGH QUALITY translations/digital publication is what Kadokawa made the investment for. I can't imagine that the model/personnel/culture (whatever it is) will not splash over to YPI read banned books
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@jon-mitchell said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
Whatever the 'secret sauce' is that JNC has that allows for FAST, HIGH QUALITY translations/digital publication is what Kadokawa made the investment for. I can't imagine that the model/personnel/culture (whatever it is) will not splash over to YP
Yes! I'm hoping for something along that line :D
YP could certainly learn a thing or two from JNC. -
Certainly surprising news but glad to hear there's no plans to change the business model.
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If this followed the typical pattern of these types of business deals then this has been already in the works for a while now -- possibly several years. Which means that if they had a big problem with how things were run they would have been asking for changes a long time ago. The likely reason why nothing needs to change right away is because there have already been gradual changes going behind the scenes for months now.
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As long as JNC doesn't implement Bookwalkers horrible DRM I am quite happy with this news. Kadokawa has some nice titles.
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@saskir said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
As long as JNC doesn't implement Bookwalkers horrible DRM I am quite happy with this news. Kadokawa has some nice titles.
I don't currently use bookwalker, is their DRM worse than anyone else's? (Amazon, Apple, etc?) maybe I need to start a new topic: "How do I consolidate an eBook collection, migrating books from applebooks, kindle, bookwalker, nook etc. to all be in one place?"
I read banned books
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If this partnership, or acquisition, means cooperation with Kadokawa’s other properties then I would hope to see some titles migrate over here. As an example, the delay between Volume 15 and 16 of Mahouka was pretty bad and I’d wish that series could be released digitally first rather than suffer a year and three week long hiatus. I’m mostly here for Bookworm and getting that weekly fix is one thing I want to stay consistent, along with the forums and subscriptions seeing as the translation won’t finish the current volumes for a few more years.
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I wonder if this will help JNC move into the "real publisher" category in the Kindle store instead of being treated like the authors self-publishing?
That might help with the censorship garbage.
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New series sounds fun. Currently there are few active series im following and couple extra like Realist Hero which we are waiting new book to release in JP. So backing up by larger company sounds really nice. I hope it wont effect JNC's quality and bussiness ethics (yes, i read Q&A parts).
