Put Critical News On The Site - AKA Subscription Changes
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Why is there no posting in the News section on this? Why is there no banner on the front page? This kind of affects every single person that uses JNC does it not?
I have no desire to dig through a 43 minute YouTube to find the details I need. I also don't see a thread anywhere on the forum yet to be able to ask questions, such as do Premium Members still get a standard discount when buy coins? This is so Kadokawa with the primary place people go for information not having it...
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Luckily I did find another site that did the work for JNC customers. For premium members like me that means dropping from 15% to 10% on the coin discount and losing the monthly catchup unless I pay an additional $4/month ($1 price raise for Premium, and then $3 more to get catchup and the full discount back). This may have me actually reduce my membership as opposed to being increased to the costs of a streaming service...
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They did send a mail with the new subscription model explained (at least, I got one) but yeah, this should be a news on the site and forum.
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Here's a whole thread on it, complete with a bunch of math to explain when you break even with each plan:
The thread title didn't lend itself to finding it easily though.
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@AnimeMayhem Yeah, JNC is really bad about communicating new information or updates.
News might be posted on Reddit or on Discord or on some industry news site. Sometimes it's posted to the forums.
The one place it's basically never posted is on JNC's own website.
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@Lex I didn't get any.
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@wanderer_1204 Are you subscribed to the newsletter?
@AnimeMayhem said in Put Critical News On The Site - AKA Subscription Changes:
losing the monthly catchup
Everyone is losing the monthly catchup, that's a new service that essentially unlocks an entire catalogue of stuff that likely won't change month to month (we'll have to see)
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@jpwong said in Put Critical News On The Site - AKA Subscription Changes:
@wanderer_1204 Are you subscribed to the newsletter?
Oh..didn't know there was one.
I did look through the video announcement. But I thought it would be cool to have an official summary somewhere.
I see that it has been provided by fellow members in another thread. All good I guess. -
@wanderer_1204 You can signup here https://j-novel.club/newsletter (the link is at the bottom of the site), it tends to be a bit behind if you're on top of everything on the forums, but if you're not it can be a good way to just not miss any announcements.
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@Lex said in Put Critical News On The Site - AKA Subscription Changes:
They did send a mail with the new subscription model explained (at least, I got one) but yeah, this should be a news on the site and forum.
No email for me yet, and I did check my spam folder.
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@HarmlessDave said in Put Critical News On The Site - AKA Subscription Changes:
@Lex said in Put Critical News On The Site - AKA Subscription Changes:
They did send a mail with the new subscription model explained (at least, I got one) but yeah, this should be a news on the site and forum.
No email for me yet, and I did check my spam folder.
Same here; no email.
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I checked on my user profile but didn't find a setting that tells me if I'm subscribed to the newsletter and eventually to which one if there are multiple options. I think I am since I receive mails about sales and announcements.
Anyway if the mail wasn't sent to everyone then that's even more of a reason to put the announcement of the new plans on the site and forum. I didn't even know there was a YouTube video until I saw people talking about it here. -
I've said it before, I'll say it again. everything in the newsletter should be on the site (and there should be an archive of newsletters) if JNC wants to put this in the user profile pulldown- so that only members see the newsletter that works , otherwise one of the scrolling banners on the top of the page should be a clickable link to the newsletter - or at the very least the "links" section that says "newsletter" should LINK TO THE NEWSLETTER
also - I see that under the information heading at the bottom of the page - How the club works and FAQ sections exist (and are better than the last time I looked) might I suggest that that be put at the TOP of the page ? (instead? in addition?) - there are "home', "series" "blog " etc selections just add "general info"
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@Lex said in Put Critical News On The Site - AKA Subscription Changes:
I didn't even know there was a YouTube video until I saw people talking about it here.
I came across it on discord. It seems like the staff are a lot more accessible on discord.. which is a pity because not everyone will have the time and energy to spend on different platforms.
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@Lex There's only one newsletter option, so you're either subscribed or you aren't.
For people who are wondering, the email I got went out on Friday Sept 26, 2025 and had a subject line of
[IMPORTANT!] J-Novel Club Subscription System Updates Going Live October 3, 2025 -
I also was not aware of the subscription changes. I only found out because I was bored and was scrolling through twitter and saw JNC "made an announcement". Nothing mentioned on the front page, nothing in the News section on the forum.
Given that now JNC is now a subsidiary of a Japanese company, you would thought they learn a thing or two from the Japanese.
Case in point, I am a Japan Airlines frequent flyer, and I did not subscribe to their newsletter, but I still got these for important announcements from the airline:
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@daytona I too was expecting an email, considering it affects a paid service I am subscribed to.
I mean, over here there are laws which forbids such major changes to begin with, if it is not ensured that all the users are informed timely and effectively with the available means.
A website announcement is considered insufficient since not everyone is checking this and that with the news.
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@Serah
I too am extremely disappointed in how this has been handled. Essentially 1 week notice and the only sources of official information are a youtube video and..... a email. I will say I did receive an email about the changes from J-novel, I'm also signed up for their weekly newsletters. I received my email at around 8am JST Saturday September 27th so check if you got it. If your not subscribed to their newsletters though i wonder if they didn't send it then. -
The price increase also seemed to have occurred early (and prior to anything else), at about 9:15 PM PDT. No sign of the new subscriptions, and the coin discount is still 15% for Premium, but all books are 799 coins instead of 699.
(Bought a book for 699, picked another book, and boom 799. Guess thats what I get for waiting till the last minute)
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@bfennema said in Put Critical News On The Site - AKA Subscription Changes:
The price increase also seemed to have occurred early (and prior to anything else), at about 9:15 PM PST.
It went live as whatever timezone Texas is went into Friday. That's what timezone JNC typically uses for date changeovers (hence why LN ebooks release at midnight there). Slightly surprised this one wasn't done in office hours like catchup etc though.
