New J-Novel Coins are here!

pcj

looks like we got our first ~~free~~included with membership coin drop today.

Tube

I cancelled my membership (set to expire next month), because I am currently only reading one series as pre-pub and pre-ordering it grants me access to pre-pub too. While calcelling, I deleted my payment information.

Now, trying to redeem a book for coins I already have on my account, the site complains that I do not have a payment method on my account. I have enough coins and no need to add a payment method to buy more. Is this a bug, intentional "feature", or just an unfortunate result of other things? An easy workaround is ofcourse adding my payment information back, but I feel that is unnecessary as I already have the coins needed to redeem the book.

chocolatkey

@Tube Thanks for reporting this, it's a bug and will be fixed

chocolatkey

@Tube Can you confirm this is fixed?

Tube

@chocolatkey It is fixed indeed. That was fast, thank you!

Tube

@myskaros said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:

here!

There's expired information on that page.

With the addition of Apple Pay and Google Pay, you'll be able to buy Coins directly on our mobile app very soon!

Tremarl

So, I buy a subscription for 1 year on the expectation of being able to redeem for 1 Ebook each month, and now the site is telling me that I'm only getting 699 coins, but some Ebooks cost 999 coins (Specifically mentions the title Beatless).

Did I just get scammed out of 30% of my purchase?

MasterLillyclaw

@Tremarl The first post in this thread has a link:

J-Novel Club has officially converted from credits to coins! Read more about this switch here!

Which mentions:

Since Coins have a smaller value, it will be much easier for us to add new products to our lineup at the price it needs to be. Right off the bat, you can now redeem 999 Coins for the Beatless Premium eBooks! We're also working on getting Premium Manga on J-Novel Club!

From what I understand, Beatless used to not be purchasable at all through JNC because its contents make it more expensive than the standard value, meaning it couldn’t be sold at “one credit.” The coin system allows them to vary prices (like for manga and such), so now it’s available at the current cost.

DarKraD

Yeah not a fan of the change to coin system and how JNC handled Beatless. I couldn't even read it when they were re-translating it and they flat out said that the ebook wasn't available for purchase in support email. And now this.

Been enjoying the service since the very beginning but luckily my membership will end in September.

Geezer Weasalopes

@DarKraD said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:

Yeah not a fan of the change to coin system and how JNC handled Beatless. I couldn't even read it when they were re-translating it and they flat out said that the ebook wasn't available for purchase in support email. And now this.

Been enjoying the service since the very beginning but luckily my membership will end in September.

So...
It hadn't been available for purchase from JNC directly because it cost more and there was no mechanism in place for more than one price.
At that time it wasn't available for purchase as an eBook direct from JNC so support told the truth.
They've now changed things a tad, making it possible to purchase items that had a different base price.

And this is cause for canceling one's membership?

Clearly I'm in my dotage, because I'm not following the reasoning behind your position.

Tremarl

@MasterLillyclaw My worry is that this will create "tiers" of books, which just causes overall consumer confusion, and in this situation potential loss.

The idea of 1 credit 1 book was super simple and worked really well for Audible.

I'd have thought the difference is negotiation power with rights holders might be the cause of a difference in policy between the two services (but it looks like Kadokawa own J-novel; not exactly a small company)

I got a subscription literally for two of the series Quof was translating - Lazy Dungeon Master and Ascendence of a Bookworm.

I'm now really, hoping that during my subscription, the series doesn't jump in price defeating the point of my subscription in the first place.

Although, at the time I took the subscription I didn't realize you could read current translations, which is very generous, which gives me a whole bitter/sweet feeling about this change.

I guess normal membership would have suited me fine and probably what i'll move to, as I've no guarantee that the subscription will get me the book I want in future, so might as well buy coins as and when they're actually needed. [Otherwise, yes this whole 99 thing will leave me with waste balances ._.]

DarKraD

@Weasalopes said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:

So...
It hadn't been available for purchase from JNC directly because it cost more and there was no mechanism in place for more than one price.
At that time it wasn't available for purchase as an eBook direct from JNC so support told the truth.
They've now changed things a tad, making it possible to purchase items that had a different base price.

And this is cause for canceling one's membership?

Clearly I'm in my dotage, because I'm not following the reasoning behind your position.

Sorry, my English is not the best so I might not be able to convey what I meant.

I never said that the support email lied about the availability of Beatless. I was more mad about it was advertised on JNC but I wasn't able to read it when they were translating. I had to buy the ebook someplace else. $20 to rebuy the whole series is not that big of the deal anyway.

The one thing makes me canceling my membership is like what the user above mentioned. I bought the membership and credit due to the fact that 1 credit = 1 book. Now I have to worry about some series on here will have price jump and such. And I will not be able to get 1 ebook with premium credit.

kuali

@Tremarl It depends a lot on how many books you buy on here; If the average is near or over 1 book a month, you're better off sticking with the premium membership unless and until books priced higher than the monthly coins becomes the norm (at least in the series you collect). The extra $5.50 a month is cheaper than buying 699 coins each month, after all ($6.64 for someone with a regular membership, I believe).

A book every 2 months or less and you can safely drop a subscription tier.

Beatless, for the moment, seems very much a special case. But if other series follow suit, you can always do the cost/benefit comparison again then. For now, you could potentially lose money by changing your subscription based on a speculative 'maybe'.

Geezer Weasalopes

@DarKraD said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:

The one thing makes me canceling my membership is like what the user above mentioned. I bought the membership and credit due to the fact that 1 credit = 1 book. Now I have to worry about some series on here will have price jump and such. And I will not be able to get 1 ebook with premium credit.

1 credit = 1 book because they only offered for sale direct from JNC items which had the same price.
They already had books selling at prices other than that, which could not be purchased direct from JNC.
By shifting from (1 credit = 1 book of one price only and it it doesn't sell at that price you can't get it here) to coins, which you can purchase in any quantity, they can now offer premium eBook editions of items they didn't make available directly at all previously.
Beatless
Manga!
Other items as well, where they couldn't negotiate their standard retail price as part of licensing.

I'm just not grasping how shifting to a method that allows you to purchase items you couldn't purchase previously is bad.

The base price is currently $6.99.
Previously you spent $6.99 to purchase 1 credit [less if a Premium member].
That credit bought you a book that sold at the same base value as the credit's base cost.

Now, you can buy any number of coins at 1 cent per coin [with the same discount applied if you are a Premium member].
There is no change in cost to obtain a book selling at the base price of $6.99.
But you can also purchase books that already sold at a different price, that you couldn't purchase with a credit.

JNC is going to increase the base selling price of their books, yes.
The cost of a credit would have increased to match.
They would not have continued selling credits for $6.99 each base price, they would have increased the base price of a credit to match the new base price of most of their books.
That would have happened whether or not they changed over to coins.

Nothing, nothing, has changed in a negative manner.
Those items which could be purchased for 1 credit can now be purchased for the exact same price that you would have paid for that credit, and you can now purchase items that weren't available because they didn't sell for that price.
And the items you can now purchase that you couldn't previously will cost less than you were paying for them elsewhere if you are a Premium Member.

DarKraD

@Weasalopes I appreciate your detailed explanation. However, I think we are not talking about the same thing.

How is introducing new novels here that I can't get with monthly premium not a negative thing? 1 credit = 1 book is such a simple system. Now with coins I have to check how much I have and how much is a book then buying the remaining coin. Even though they are the same price, the hassle is not worth it I think. And I don't care about manga as most of what JNC are not my interested.

And in the scenario without the coins, if JNC increase the price to compensate for the licensing deal then at that point I still reevaluating the benefit of being a premium sub and act accordingly.

I admit that my arguments is not that convincing but like mentioned before, I joined the premium because I was promised all JNC catalog at reasonable price and 12 books a year. Now there are some in the catalog that I can't get with premium.

kuali

@DarKraD Getting the site to automatically fill in the 'extra coins needed' amount when you try to buy a book that's more expensive than your balance might be a pretty good suggestion for the jnc staff....

If the site did that calculation for you, would you feel better about the switch?

Anyway, the point of contention between you and @Weasalopes seems to be relatively simple - the change introduced complexity (a negative), but allowed a greater range of content to be sold directly (a positive, especially for those of us who collect one or more manga series and used to use comixology...). Whether you feel the change overall is a good or a bad one depends mostly on which of those two factors matters most to you. If all the content you were interested in was on sale under the old system, the change doesn't really have an upside...

Geezer Weasalopes

@DarKraD said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:

I admit that my arguments is not that convincing but like mentioned before, I joined the premium because I was promised all JNC catalog at reasonable price and 12 books a year. Now there are some in the catalog that I can't get with premium.

Except that's not the case!!!!
There was stuff in the catalog that couldn't be purchased with Premium, that now can.
You weren't able to purchase everything JNC published direct from JNC.
Even if you define the 'catalog' as Light Novels only, you weren't able to purchase all of them directly from JNC, since some of them sold at a different price.

Presuming you aren't interested in purchasing manga and the LNs that did have a different price, yeah, it's a little less intuitive what's going on.
Nothing you could get with credits has gone away; there has been no reduction in what is available for purchase.
Not one volume has been removed that could be purchased using credits.
You still get the 12 books per year.

jpwong

@Weasalopes I think this is the same issue that the guy who asked to have their 500 credits refunded when the coin system was introduced was largely thinking of. If JNC eventually raises the price of their premium epubs the way they will be with their external storefront vendors next month it represents a loss of value for any coins that were converted from credits or were handed out from the monthly sub since what previously would have gotten your 1 standard premium epub won't anymore unless you spend it before the price increase goes into effect.

Geezer Weasalopes

@jpwong
The chap with the 500 credits I understand, since JNC has/had a final switchover where surviving credits turned into coins, and thus would be devalued if/when a price increase was implemented.

In regard to the 12 per year bit, um, the thought that one of those would not be expended the month they received it boggles my mind; would a Premium membership have ever been cost effective if you weren't obtaining at least one book per month?
The outstanding balance of coins effectively being devalued upon a price increase in coins is true, but unless they've stayed on top of purchasing every title they are interested in as it first becomes available for pre-order and have a significant outstanding balance, there should be enough time between the final announcement concerning when it's going down to spend that balance down on things that would have been purchased eventually.

But...
I gotta concede that if you had no interest in the material now available which hadn't been, the change from credits to coins has downsides and no upsides for those with a Premium membership when a price increase occurs and they have an outstanding balance of coins rather than credits.

jpwong

@Weasalopes Yeah I do concede that not spending your monthly sub would be a bit odd unless you're only buying 1 series. I suppose the issue there would mostly reflect around the premium series. If you buy Beatless (given it's the only example right now) you then end up with a weird amount of coins which necessitates you topping up to put you back into an amount of coins where you can buy standard series and end up with exactly 0 coins afterwards. I guess the only thing I can think of that would help that situation out a bit would be if there was some sort of warning if the series costs more than the standard LN pricing, but I feel like we have more than enough popups already.

@kuali said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:

Getting the site to automatically fill in the 'extra coins needed' amount when you try to buy a book that's more expensive than your balance might be a pretty good suggestion for the jnc staff....
If the site did that calculation for you, would you feel better about the switch?

There's a minimum 500 coin purchase so if the amount is less than that it's not really going to work so well.