No Adult Light Novels Anywhere
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I googled “adult light novels available in English“ and the best I got was “light novels for teens and young adults.” That pretty much means there are no publishers buying the rights to light novels with adult content, why?
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@tahu said in No Adult Light Novels Anywhere:
I googled “adult light novels available in English“ and the best I got was “light novels for teens and young adults.” That pretty much means there are no publishers buying the rights to light novels with adult content, why?
Those are called "Novels".
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speculation on my part: (assuming you mean "18+" rated books vs. literature/mass market novels that happen to have an adult audience) For example: Harry Potter, is Young Adult fiction- same as most LNs, Game of Thrones isn't, but neither is it in the 'adult fiction' section of the bookstore that is reserved for erotica- what would be 18+ in Japan.
- most LN content in Japan is "young adult" oriented - (also why many protagonists are in high school)
- in some markets "18+" is treated as porn, and some outlets then run into issues with getting credit card transactions processed, being delisted in amazon (because the algorithm is stupid, LN=manga=comic books=must be kid friendly, or gets delisted) or other complications when they get lumped in with other things tagged as 'porn'.
- logistics: would seller have to do some kind of age verification?
- by definition, '18+' novels don't have as broad a market to sell to, publishers can only print/translate so many series, unless there is some indication that a particular series will sell extremely well, why take the risk/limit your potential sales?
Personally I want lots of content, regardless of if it's tagged '18+" or not; I'm all about the story. One could argue if some popular LN's/manga should have a 18+ label or not - at the same time I understand the business reasons why a publisher wouldn't wade into that market segment for business/practical reasons
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Indeed. I love me some R-18 and I think there's a market for it... However it is a risky business in these rather censorious times, and probably not worth the potential negative press / payment provider hassle for an existing business...
Now if someone starts j-18 novels club they will have my subscription lol
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@shipteaser There is a publisher "J18" out there, at least according to rightstufanime.com . Don't remember if they do novels, though.
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@someoldguy interesting will have to look out of curiosity
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It's not R-18 but this might interest you (relationship spoilers in topic): https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3976/in-what-light-novels-the-main-characters-have-a-physical-relationship/70
Amazon is so intolerant they censor LNs for having risqué illustrations - https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/3666/regarding-missing-modified-titles-from-amazon/149
With the Kindle market cut off from R-18 it's going to be much harder to turn a profit from translated LNs.
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@harmlessdave said in No Adult Light Novels Anywhere:
With the Kindle market cut off from R-18 it's going to be much harder to turn a profit from translated LNs.
which is the frustrating part- Kindle/amazon has plenty of 'adult' content - they just categorize LN's as "for kids"
I mean they have like 18 different ways to buy books in the Fifty Shades of Grey series, which is just porn with a thin veneer of soccer mom legitimacy (including multimedia CDs for crissakes) and entire libraries of similar content - Amazon doesn't mind selling "adult" content - they just balk at anything that looks like anime type art being 'adult' because magna are childrens' books dontchaknow -
You can get the Interspecies Reviewers LN through kindle or paperback. It’s pretty damn close to R-18.
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@harmlessdave I noticed that they have no problem selling manga with explicit content. But ignoring Amazon there seems to be no publishing company licensing light novels like these at all.
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@tahu said in No Adult Light Novels Anywhere:
@harmlessdave I noticed that they have no problem selling manga with explicit content. But ignoring Amazon there seems to be no publishing company licensing light novels like these at all.
Eh.
It's Amazon as a self-publishing platform providing a place for English language original works with erotic content (for certain values of erotic...) in the style of Japanese Light Novels.
They aren't licensed translations of Japanese language Light Novels with that kinda content.
So still a case of not knowing of any English language publishing firms who have licensed that kind of Japanese Light Novel for translation.
Manga, yes. LNs? No. At least, none I'm aware of. -
@shipteaser
Considering how much nudity, sex, and incest Game of Thrones was allowed to show I’d hardly say that the entertainment industry of our times is censored. -
@tahu depends. It's like Sony where western sex is allowed but an anime girl in underwear gets your game pulled. There's a clear double standard on censorship here in the west
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@tahu The books show nothing of that. A Song of Ice and Fire is nothing but words, no pictures. That’s where Amazon has a problem. You can write the most obscene and graphic story and it’d be fine as long as it stays in word form. But as soon as you add illustrations, that’s where Amazon starts getting strict.
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LN publishers want to put their LNs in all of the stores, so they need to skip anything that will be rejected by all of Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo.
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I am not sure where's the weak link here. Amazon/Kindle has many books that can't be characterized as anything else but light novel series that contain multipage, detailed, graphic, and sometimes quite decent sex scenes. These LNs would still be quite good without the explicit sex, but it actually adds to how believable the story is - and sometimes it is woven into the logic of the plot in a decent way. They are books for adults by adults with (sometimes barely) adult characters, who do adult things. Recent examples on Kindle Unlimited - from the top of my head - are the Aether Mage or Zodiac Academy series.
"All libraries, everywhere, are connected by the bookworm holes in space created by the strong space-time distortions found around any large collection of books." - Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
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@topgnu Did you miss my comment above? I just checked your examples and they yet again seem to be explicit in words only. They are only 1.5Mb in size, meaning they have no illustrations. Amazon doesn't care how explicit a book is as long as there are no pictures/drawings.
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@legitpancake said in No Adult Light Novels Anywhere:
@topgnu Did you miss my comment above? I just checked your examples and they yet again seem to be explicit in words only. They are only 1.5Mb in size, meaning they have no illustrations. Amazon doesn't care how explicit a book is as long as there are no pictures/drawings.
Yeah, but if it has any pictures, even if the pictures aren't anything explicit and that kind of stuff only occurs in text, they treat it as a childrens book and will ban it if the content isn't appropriate for kids under 8, regardless of how much the sellers make it clear that it isn't a children's book
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@cooper-cummings-gk5u8qq I mean, it's a US-based company, and that's sort of the cultural assumption the US has about illustrated/animated works in general, so it's hardly surprising. It's bass ackwards and ignorant as fall uck, but... them's the cultural assumptions (although you know what they say happens when you assume...)
My grasp on sanity remains absolute.
Oh, right, the poison, the poison for Kuzco, the poison chosen especially to kill Kuzco, Kuzco's poison. ...That poison?
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@thegrimlich said in No Adult Light Novels Anywhere:
@cooper-cummings-gk5u8qq I mean, it's a US-based company, and that's sort of the cultural assumption the US has about illustrated/animated works in general, so it's hardly surprising. It's bass ackwards and ignorant as fall uck, but... them's the cultural assumptions (although you know what they say happens when you assume...)
That excuse really doesn't hold any water anymore with the sheer quantity of mature western comics and animation out there with mass market reach, all happily sold on Amazon.
