Shop-specific bonus stories

c933103

In Japan, a number of series (both manga and novel) come with bonus stories that can only be accessed if purchased through specific storefront. They can be static illustration, manga panels, short written stories, or even audio drama in some cases. With the current translation and release system, readers in English will not be possible to access these stories. Can JNC do something to make it possible for readers to obtain and read (or listen to) these stories?

myskaros

If you buy the premium ebook from our site, you get the bonus stories that we were able to get. You can see what bonuses each book has here:

https://forums.j-novel.club/topic/4902/premium-e-book-bonus-contents-list-updated-october-7-2022

c933103

@myskaros
I am concerned with those that aren't in the list.

For example,

I shall survive using potions 4 come with following shop specials:
https://booksprivilege.com/?tag=ポーション頼みで生き延びます
Toranoana: Two-sided illustration card with new illustration on one side and story on the other side
Gamers: A newly written short story paper, and a collaboration short story paper as a fair special
Animate: Short story paper

VTuber Legend 2 in Japan come with following shop specials:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210910134549/https://fantasiabunko.jp/special/202105vtuber/
Animate: Special audio drama + 4 pages short story booklet
17 shops: Bromides
Melonbooks: Short story leaflet
Gamers: postcard
Some specific shops: "Shuwa chan comment paper"

myskaros

@c933103 We can't license everything, a lot of the time they simply aren't available for us.

jpwong

@c933103 Not sure how complex the licensing situation is in Japan, but if the specific stores get some say in the licensing of their store exclusive bonuses, they may simply not want to have those items available at all outside of their store in which case it's not going to matter how much JNC asks, they're not going to agree to license those materials.

It's kind of the same way that JNC is never going to get the exclusive bonus stories that are being written for By the grace of the gods anime limited edition blu ray box or the bonus stories that appear in the manga square enix is releasing in English already.

c933103

@jpwong Some of these stores have international operation also and thus I wonder if there're some grounds of collaboration.

Travis Butler

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

@jpwong Some of these stores have international operation also and thus I wonder if there're some grounds of collaboration.

If anything, international operation would make it less likely, as that would make JNC a more direct competitor.

If you're one of these stores, the point of these exclusives is to get someone to buy the book from you. (And you've probably written some legal contracts specifying your exclusive rights.) If you let someone else have these stories, then you are giving away sales. They may not be many sales, but there are people crazy enough to buy from you even if you're not operating in their native language. And the more markets you're operating in, the more sales you'd be giving away.

jpwong

@Travis-Butler said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

If anything, international operation would make it less likely

I feel sort of like case in point, but Bookwalker advertises an exclusive bonus short story if you buy their shop exclusive version of Hell Mode volume 1 in English. I'm assuming this is that bonus short story that's sort of mentioned in the discussion topic as being known about, but not available in the JNC version.

GeorgeMTO

@Travis-Butler said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

@jpwong Some of these stores have international operation also and thus I wonder if there're some grounds of collaboration.

If anything, international operation would make it less likely, as that would make JNC a more direct competitor.

If you're one of these stores, the point of these exclusives is to get someone to buy the book from you. (And you've probably written some legal contracts specifying your exclusive rights.) If you let someone else have these stories, then you are giving away sales. They may not be many sales, but there are people crazy enough to buy from you even if you're not operating in their native language. And the more markets you're operating in, the more sales you'd be giving away.

Yeah, I was interpeting c933103's statement more like jpwong, in that perhaps they'd list the book for sale on their website too, along with their version of the bonus story. Bookwalker do it for several other stories, not just Hell Mode, listing exclusive bonus stories alongside certain volumes that you cannot find on any other website.

@jpwong said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

I'm assuming this is that bonus short story that's sort of mentioned in the discussion topic as being known about, but not available in the JNC version.

Common misconception, but no. That Hell Mode bonus story is apparently in the JP Amazon edition and is not officially available in English. It was mistakenly included in prepubs, but never the official epub.

jpwong

@GeorgeMTO I'm a bit curious as to what this listing is exactly then

https://global.bookwalker.jp/de15de0dd0-b178-4af7-933e-4794dba6b95e/book☆walker-exclusive-hell-mode-volume-1-short-story-bonus-item/

It uses the English cover and it's listed as "BOOK☆WALKER Exclusive: Hell Mode: Volume 1 Short Story [Bonus Item]"

It can't be something that's in JNC's version or it wouldn't be a bookwalker exclusive, but does that mean there's a second bonus story that's not in the JNC ebook?

Travis Butler

@jpwong said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

@Travis-Butler said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

If anything, international operation would make it less likely

I feel sort of like case in point, but Bookwalker advertises an exclusive bonus short story if you buy their shop exclusive version of Hell Mode volume 1 in English. I'm assuming this is that bonus short story that's sort of mentioned in the discussion topic as being known about, but not available in the JNC version.

Um... yes? That's exactly what I was saying, unless I'm misunderstanding you.

Bookwalker wants you to buy Hell Mode from them, not JNC. So they contract for an exclusive story that's only available from them, and JNC can't license it for their release.

If Bookwalker didn't operate in the English-speaking market, they might be more willing to let JNC license the story for their release; they might lose a few sales from JNC readers who speak Japanese, but it wouldn't be that many. But Bookwalker is competing directly with JNC in the English-speaking market; that makes it very unlikely that they'd let JNC have their exclusive content.

Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what @c933103 meant by 'collaboration'. From context, I'm guessing they mean 'Bookwalker works with JNC and lets JNC include Bookwalker's exclusive stories in their release.' Which, as I said, is really unlikely.

jpwong

@Travis-Butler And I was agreeing with you with an example where this is occurring already, though GeorgeMTO pointed out, apparently whatever the heck bookwalker is offering is not the story I had originally thought it was and they seem to have another story which we must not have here.

c933103

@Travis-Butler What I mean is, like, since the story is bookwalker-exclusive, what about JNC also releasing its translation only on bookwalker?

And, there are also some bonuses that commonly designated to "a list of store from around Japan", in which case I do not believe there is another right holder on those bonuses besides the publishers?

And there are actually cases of like "paid bonus" where customers need to pay extra for the bonus, like the Audio drama in the Vtuber Legend 2 Animate special mentioned above, and is actually forming its own separate merchandise item in the relavent shop. Could the situation for them be different?

Wellwisher

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

since the story is bookwalker-exclusive, what about JNC also releasing its translation only on bookwalker?

Why would JNC take an initiative to release something that will redirect their customers from their platform to another (that they'll profit less per sale from)? That being said, some Bookwalker store exclusives are translated by BW and are available in english.

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

"a list of store from around Japan", in which case I do not believe there is another right holder

As those stories are ordered by specific bookstore chains/companies, they may very well have a say in the matter.

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

And there are actually cases of like "paid bonus" where customers need to pay extra for the bonus, like the Audio drama in the Vtuber Legend 2 Animate special mentioned above, and is actually forming its own separate merchandise item in the relavent shop. Could the situation for them be different?

Nope, if anything, it's even worse. Merch can be tied to production companies, and from what I've heard, arranging the rights to audiodramas is it's own circle of legal hell due to how JP copyright works in regards to recorded media.

GeorgeMTO

@jpwong said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

@GeorgeMTO I'm a bit curious as to what this listing is exactly then

https://global.bookwalker.jp/de15de0dd0-b178-4af7-933e-4794dba6b95e/book☆walker-exclusive-hell-mode-volume-1-short-story-bonus-item/

It uses the English cover and it's listed as "BOOK☆WALKER Exclusive: Hell Mode: Volume 1 Short Story [Bonus Item]"

It can't be something that's in JNC's version or it wouldn't be a bookwalker exclusive, but does that mean there's a second bonus story that's not in the JNC ebook?

Yup, it is indeed a second one. @Rahul-Balaggan ~~was bullied into buying~~ chose to buy the volume from Bookwalker in order to read it, and posted a summary on discord, while my memory of the one that JNC had in prepubs was about something different. Both below the cut because unrelated to this specific topic

spoiler

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

What I mean is, like, since the story is bookwalker-exclusive, what about JNC also releasing its translation only on bookwalker?

Based on some comments by Quarkboy/Sam/admin/bossman/YouGetTheIdea on discord back in 2018 regarding an Infinite Dendrogram bonus story, that's up to Bookwalker to offer the option if they want it translated on their service, and not something JNC can really buy. If they want to keep the story exclusive to themselves, they have to pay for their own translation of it. It doesn't earn JNC money to translate it for them.

c933103

@Wellwisher said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

since the story is bookwalker-exclusive, what about JNC also releasing its translation only on bookwalker?

Why would JNC take an initiative to release something that will redirect their customers from their platform to another (that they'll profit less per sale from)? That being said, some Bookwalker store exclusives are translated by BW and are available in english.

~~It depends on what kind of agreement can JNC reach with distributors since it clearly favor some of them so there should be better share that the publisher can take?~~ Or I guess not?

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

"a list of store from around Japan", in which case I do not believe there is another right holder

As those stories are ordered by specific bookstore chains/companies, they may very well have a say in the matter.

I don't think so. An example of such list, https://fantasiabunko.jp/special/202102iinazuke/shoplist.html , show some of the more famous stores like Tsutaya, Kinokuniya, Kumazawa, WonderGoo, Bunkyodo, Hakubundo, Shosen, Comic Zin, Maruzen, and Toranoana, which I am fairly certain aren't all connected together to specific chain or company.

@c933103 said in Shop-specific bonus stories:

And there are actually cases of like "paid bonus" where customers need to pay extra for the bonus, like the Audio drama in the Vtuber Legend 2 Animate special mentioned above, and is actually forming its own separate merchandise item in the relavent shop. Could the situation for them be different?

Nope, if anything, it's even worse. Merch can be tied to production companies, and from what I've heard, arranging the rights to audiodramas is it's own circle of legal hell due to how JP copyright works in regards to recorded media.

In this case, the audio drama seems to be tied to a service called "pokedora". Then in addition, the book have an audiobook version of the story which have its own exclusive short story bonus, and the audiobook version was only exclusively available via Niconico Dwango's ListenGo service under Kadokawa.

admin

Broadly speaking there are two types of store specific bonus content:
Bonus content paid for by the publisher in Japan in order to boost sales (often at the request of a Japanese book store, sort of like a co-op in western retail)
Or
Bonus content paid for by the book store (or affiliate of the book store). Which are done by the stores as part of their marketing and they usually hire the japanese publishers to make it for them.

In scenario 1 the rights to this extra content are usually held by the publisher, the same as the main book. In scenario 2 the bonus content was done as a work for hire scenerio, so the rights would be held by the store. However the bonus content is still derivative of the main work, so licensing it would require approval from the jp publisher in addition to negotiations with the store. Rather, in the cases where we have gotten this content, it's likely the case that the jp publisher buys the rights back from the store, and then resells them to JNC.

Jp publishers have different stances when it comes to this bonus content. Some are happy to provide it (the ones they have rights to) to overseas licensors for use in marketing or sales etc.
Some require additional money.
Some ask for ridiculous amounts of money.
Some are too disorganized and do not even attempt to do the legal legwork to make them available at all.
Some give restrictions for their use which are unrealistic given ebook formats (only can be used as a physical printed bonus, etc).

It's a mess and we do our best.