[Suggestion] Novel Pricing
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You can't find any book translated from Japanese cheaper than this unless they were printed in 10000s of copies. Especially not light novels. J-Novel Club's light novels are already 2-4$ cheaper than all the other companies. They cost pretty much the same as the Japanese version and that market hasn't died yet, but only expanded in the last few years.
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@hak0 Does the market truly expands though, say, do you see an ads on web novel? If not then they truly have not made any progress in promoting their product. The illusion of being able to connect to an audience or fan base that already exists is not truly expansion.
I don't really care about the pricing on market, numbers change, it's how the market works, what I'm emphasizing is that this marketing scheme does not work, if it is carried out in its current form.
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@legitpancake Well, that only happens if I stick around really. If people like me doesn't then whether or not something new comes out is of no consequence. This is not to criticize the site, I think it's great, very daring to do something like this but its marketing scheme needs to be fixed if it wants to survive
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@mianli what needs to change? Have you compared J-Novel to other companies? Yen Press has no membership program, but they offer physical books which are available in bookstores and online retailers for $14 retail, and most of their books cost $8 for ebooks. But they are very slow in their translation.
J-Novel is ebook only at the moment (although they have partnered with Seven Seas to offer some printed versions of some of their best selling novels), but the membership is very much worth it if you read just 2 series each month. I follow about a dozen series on this site, and to me the membership is awesome. If you don’t like the membership, that’s fine, just cancel and buy Amazon Kindle versions or whatever. But don’t come here and start threatening that the business will collapse, even though you have no idea as to the financial situation J-Novel is in.
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@legitpancake The most important change is the way they promote novels, currently there isn't a way to promote reading novels. Pricing is only so expensive is because they can't sell enough and have to make up for that by increasing their value in hope that their loyal customer will give them a helping hand.
This is fine if you wish to only act as a kind of independent retailer or part time promoter but to promote and attract new reader to the genre, to novel, you need a little more art to it.
Giving people a service they want is not promotion, it is simply reaching out
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@mianli They have a very active Twitter, and they will be hosting a panel with Japanese authors at Anime Expo in California during which they will announce quite a few new license acquisitions. Not to mention every one of J-Novel’s licenses get announced on Anime News Network and a good portion of their novels get book reviews on ANN since they provide free copies to reviewers. I’d say all in all that is a pretty good advertisement.
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@legitpancake I'm not here to argue what makes numbers go higher but the thing is, making people pay for membership, creating weird normal membership and premiums then directs them to a retailer on Amazon is not a good image
This system of letting people read for a bit then turns it off is not good for new people. That's what I see, that's what I say, but if I'm wrong then there is something wrong in the way they put everything together
I don't really do the whole fan thing, I only see value to value. And if their whole scheme is to create short term fans then I don't have anything to say.
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@mianli you have said previously that marketing is important and such, so you have been talking about what makes numbers go up....
The memberships don’t necessarily drive people to amazon the only way to buy the DRM free, high resolution e-books with bonus content is to be a member of this site.
So members can buy at $7 each just like on amazon (and $1 cheaper then the cheapest LN competitor) and premium members can get them for $6 each.
As for, “letting people read for a bit then turns it off” and how that’s not good for new people, JNC is frequently offering catch up months where all volumes are put back up for the subscribers. That value is unbeatable, if for instances someone wanted to read all of, The Faraway Paladin that’s 5 volumes, but this month for $4.95 they could have read them all...
Last thing I had to say
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@mianli harry potter volumes brand new used to cost 15 to 25 USD. Most western physical/digital books range from 6.99 to 11USD so the fact that a translated novel only costs 7USD (especially compared to other companies) is rather cheap.
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@mianli Sorry, but what do you meant that we get redirected to Amazon?? They simply display all the links for their various retailers AND sell the premium version on their own. I mean, that makes total sense, if you didn't have a membership, you still see all the outlets where you can buy the book, but then you see this little "premium" button with a totally awesome DRM-free, high resolution epub with bonus material, but it only works with a membership. That's how I got my membership. And the premium membership is pretty much just a discount. Since you get a free credit every month (which cost only 6$ for premium members) the actual membership ends up still costing only 4.95$, and you get to buy more credits for less than the amazon price. It's pretty damn great IMO.
Basically, if you are already a member, and already buy at least one premium epub monthly, you are better off getting the premium membership, you'd be saving 1$ at minimum, with a extra buck saved for every extra book you buy that month. So yeah, premium is by all means worth it.
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@paulnamida If you buy from Amazon, that means you get redirected to Amazon. Amazon offer same kind of discount to their premium user really, maybe not as much but the idea is quite the same. Give some money, maybe get discount to give more money.
I'm not here to attack this site or whatever, but this is kind of right infront of my eyes. If the cost is so high, you really need to wonder what the hell is going on with this industry. Volumes are not that long and it costs almost as much as a whole book? And it is digital? If you are fine with this kind of pricing then sure, go ahead.
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@rahul-balaggan I respect your commitment, but the thing is, what they need is to be able to reach out to new audience, doing new things maybe, I'm not sure how much support they give back to writers but $10 for a volume is a bit much don't you think. If you're from a country with currency of higher power of purchase then that's fine but say if you're from somewhere else then it's just weird.
Japanese currency is not that high in terms of its power of purchase yet it asks you to buy a single volume for $10. That is just weird to me, especially when Japanese novel is trying to reach out to readers
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@mianli this is just my personal situation, but books in my country, well, at least not-bootleg ones, are quite damn pricey. Paperbacks on average cost 15$+, hardcovers are 30$+. You might say "that's a normal price", but for a place where the minimum wage is 250$/month, it's quite high. That's why bootleg books are so popular in my country. Then these e-books are just 6$, just a little bit over the price of bootleg ones (around 4$). I find them to be dirt cheap.
Now, other ebooks are cheaper, yes. But those are primarily first party releases. LNs on the other hand have to deal with licensing AND translation. That's what cranks up the price. And even then, JNC's prices are lower than other companies in the same medium.
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@sam-pinansky For some folks it's totally a better membership though. Like me.
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@paulnamida Well, I do agree that books in your place is quite expensive, but really, it is digital, no printing, no distribution, no storage, is it supposed to be that high? If the people at your place dictates the price as such and agree to such prices, that's not because that's the lowest it can get, but the lowest you agree to.
To me, something so brand new and short as light novels don't really deserve that high? Maybe I'm biased in someways, but that's my opinion, something that already has its base costs significantly reduced are not supposed to go that high. Especially if it's trying to promote itself, if it's not trying to promote itself then that's a different question all together.
What I don't like, and I'm going to be frank is that I came here, got a membership and found out that it is kind of useless, maybe i'm just unlucky but when I saw the pricing per volume, I'm not convinced.
And things like but that company sells it higher don't convince me. If they care about you, they run ads to cut costs, like how they do it with manga sites. The price of anything ultimately is what the customer accept to pay. No one ever get the full story of where all the money go.
Licensing something and diverting people to go to certain sites is a marketing strategy but I don't think it is an effective one, that's all. If it's a business say it's a business
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@mianli I have been going by US prices, so in the US JNC has no books on sale for $10.
its either $7 at most places and $6 for premium members. So if you are from a country where the price is different due to conversion i can't comment on that.
What i can say is in the US amazon does not do any discounts for JNC books at all in any regard, whether you are a prime member or not.
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@rahul-balaggan they give you gift cards, same concept, money reduction. What i meant was not that they directly give you discount, only the main retailer of a product can do that.
What I'm trying to say is that the cost of a single volume of light novel is too much for its value. The volume itself is short, not a good trade. If reading novels is a habit like smoking then you would not mind. But for some one new to the whole Japanese Novel thing, it is not very attractive.
Now i don't know if the price is like that because it has to be or for some other reason but truly, the price of a single volume is quite high, some one new will not find that very attractive. I think it can be better.
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@rahul-balaggan And to clarify, I was talking abt Canadian dollars, sorry for that. It is precisely 8.98 CND quite a lot given it's only one volume. Say if it's a 4 volume book, around 1000 pages? that would be roughly 36CND, that is not nothing.
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English translated LNs are pricey for two reasons:
- The market is niche, and probably always will be. This means profit margins need to be higher on a per piece basis, and there is increased risk with new product never recovering costs.
- There's more work involved. The author and original publisher get their due (Google suggests around $5 per LN is average for Japan), then the translator and editor, then administrative overhead for JNC itself. Plus store fees if you'e not buying it straight from here. And now sales taxes in the US!
Adverts make no sense to me. I'm sure most of JNC's website traffic is from members to begin with. One of the most common perks of website membership is ad removal. Also, everything I've read says ads pay very little unless you're classified as an "influencer."
Membership is definitely a fan thing. I can totally understand a casual reader not really seeing the value. It's for people who read the prepubs and, for premium, buy a lot of books. If you only read one or two series, you're better off just buying them from Amazon, sure.
@mianli said in [Suggestion] Novel Pricing:
The price of anything ultimately is what the customer accept to pay. No one ever get the full story of where all the money go.
This does bug me. There's always a floor on the price - the sum of the value of the product's components, plus labor involved to assemble it. It's rare to see things sold deliberately at a loss. I know video game consoles are, but they make that up with game licensing, and they are sold by huge companies with money to spare. Otherwise your product is a failure, and you stop selling it.
