Sol Press Discussion Thread
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@Jon-Mitchell I totally get it. $10 for a 200-250 page book, even if translated and included illustrations, is just difficult to stomach or justify. It’s kinda why I’m not reading very many Seven Seas light novels. If JNC had gotten Abilities Average I would be caught up with the translation, but with 7S’s prices I only got the first volume. I did buy the first 5 volumes of Mushoku Tensei on BW though when they had a 50% coin back sale, but that’s basically the only time I can buy them. I was able to get 80k Gold for a decent price, though, but I haven’t even started it given we still have no idea when SP will continue.
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Yen Press is usually over $10 as another posted they are often in sale on Amazon but if you look their MSRP are in the 12-15$ range for many titles
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@trashboat We're talking about ebooks and in USD. All of Yen Press's paperback LN ebooks are retail value at $7.99, and their ebooks of hardcover LNs are $9.99. Some of their more recent released series are starting to be $8.99 though. None of their ebooks are more than $10 unless it's on Bookwalker.
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@LegitPancake said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
@trashboat We're talking about ebooks and in USD. All of Yen Press's paperback LN ebooks are retail value at $7.99, and their ebooks of hardcover LNs are $9.99. Some of their more recent released series are starting to be $8.99 though. None of their ebooks are more than $10 unless it's on Bookwalker.
Sorry if this is dumb on my part but what is the diff between a hard cover and paperback ebook? Aren't both just ebooks?
And my bad regarding this being a strictly ebook discussion I didn't see that in the original post
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@trashboat Just some silly way of Yen Press to price digital LNs.
For example, Overlord is one of the series from Yen Press that are printed in hardcover.
The digital price is thus higher than their paperback LN series.
Note that it doesn't come with any extras or anything that justifies the price increase.
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@Village-Idiot wow that's honestly ridiculous. I like a lot of their releases and have no gripes with their quality, but I like having extras and side stories and to charge more in digital because of a physical format difference blows my mind.
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Unfortunately, this isn't just a US publisher trend.
Tankobon and Bunkobon are both just EBooks digitally, but one goes for more than the other even in Japan (double priced frequently, 1200 yen vs 600 yen). I see 300+ page Bunkos at that lower price, while sub 300 page Tankos are the 1200 price.
(While they can be bigger or have a more mature audience, they don't have to, and yet can still be more expensive digitally).
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Yen is starting to charge 8.99 for some"paperback" light novels too. "Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon..." Is $8.99 and it's a paperback.
Because of that I held off on volume 2 (first was good but not great).
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@Terrence I've tried to read up on this online but I had thought the difference between tanko and bunko was just the paper size they use and not really much else. Am I missing some major factor that would cause such a big price discrepancy?
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@trashboat The overall quality of the book is higher. Clovers are less flimsy and the paper used is thicker.
They feel more like a collector item than the bunko. -
I'm happy to see that Sol Press has managed to release their first LN of the year. Congrats!
That's faint praise, but maybe it means we'll get 80,000 Gold before Christmas after all.
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@trashboat
In addition to what Timmaaah said about the quality, there's also just a consideration of sales. A lot of stuff that's initially released in tankoubon isn't necessarily expected to be a big seller, so you'll make your money back more easily by charging more.Oftentimes a book that sells well will get re-printed in bunko, similar to how in America many novels will be released as more expensive hardcovers, and then get mass-market paperback releases later on if there's enough interest in the book that it will still make money at lower profit margins.
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Thanks for clarifying all this :)
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I honestly don't understand all the hate Sol Press is getting (not trying to defend them either, just trying to put some sense into it).
If Sol Press got something licensed, it literally means nobody out there was interested in licensing it. Can you ever imagine Sol Press licensing something if SS or Yen wanted it as well (or any other major publisher really)?
Knowing that, id rather have it licensed by Sol Press with a slow release than not have it at all.
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@Happy That's not always the case. For example others wanted to license 80k Gold, but now the license is stuck with
SolSlow Press with volume 1 having been released on 26 April 2019. More than 1 year later and there's still no release date for V2. According to their blog posts V2 has been in editing/proofreading/qa/whatever for more than 6 months which is completely absurd. The same situation applies to basically all of their LNs/manga, that is why Slow Press is getting all the hate; less than 1 volume released per year is an abysmally slow pace (especially compared to JNC which releases 1 volume every 2-3 months for multiple series). -
The concern is the status quo with Sol Press shown by their prior licenses.
Many licenses have in the past, with older companies have held licenses which they did nothing with, preventing others from acquiring them. The company then goes into sequestration ie bankruptcy which then causes issues in the future as the series if ever picked up has to be restarted from scratch.The series was released in November and they have had approaching 8 months. In that time they have failed on 2 counts.
- continue the release schedule promised, Volume 5 technically should have been released by now. But even in digital, it is still on 3....the first 3 which they used to draw attention with promises of quick releases.
- printing of the paperbacks, this was due February, and even before Covid 19 became an issue the deadline was broken, Heck Amazon did not even have a pre order option. And their own online store eventually stopped taking orders. All of these things are indicators of a failing business. Especially when placed in the context of their other licenses.
Everyone is concerned because if in this series, Sol goes down, the ability to rescue may never occur as the series may be seen as well non profitable. Personally, this series was superior to Asterisk War which Yen Press supported.
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@Terabyte Maybe their translation crew has been suffering from SLOVID for all these months?
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@Happy said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
If Sol Press got something licensed, it literally means nobody out there was interested in licensing it
I think you may be mistaken. Imagine that a title is available to be licensed and company x, company y, and company z "bid" for it, only one can 'win'.
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@Jon-Mitchell
If your local Basketball team is trying to get a player, while said player is being recruited by the Lakers or other premium destinations, your local team will only get him if every other big name literally wasn't interested in getting him or they decided it wasn't worth their time at some point. Its how things work. Its the reason Yen also calls the shots on every Kadokawa license before anyone else (granted they are a part of it but you get the gist of it). -
@Happy Every publisher has a limited throughput, they can't just license everything they think is good. There's a limited supply of staff, bookstore space, operating funds, etc. For example, two other publishers (SS and JNC) thought FUNA novels would make for good licenses, and I can't think that 80k was left behind because it was too inferior to the others. SS and JNC already had their new FUNA license and I imagine they might have come back later to try to pick the remaining one if it hadn't been doomed to eternal stasis in the clutches of Sol.
