Sol Press AMA on /r/LightNovels
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@myskaros said in Sol Press AMA on /r/LightNovels:
@terrence said in Sol Press AMA on /r/LightNovels:
In a world where "Maria Watches Over Us" is at 30+ volumes. xD
Biased sample fallacy
I would like to seriously see, of the actual samples we have of English localized light novels, what is considered short, average, and long. Since we mostly get popular works, these are generally going beyond the average range. Though this is changing with Yen Press taking chances on some bizarre and relatively new series (Vending Machine, Mommy Isekai, Elf Pizza... If that ever releases) and the occasional movie tie in / original source (Your Name, The Boy and the Beast, that Fireworks one... I dunno know if those are all technically LN).
The average series length in Japan is probably a lot lower because of cancelled series. All those sad 1-2 volume works. =[
Edit: So one thing you can do on Bookwalker is check how many volumes there are per series, and you can pair that down to intervals of 10, so not super helpful, but...
There are 7,896 light novel series that are between 1-10 volumes (some of those individual "light novels" could be small promotional things or collected works). There are 282 that are 11-20 volumes. 37 that are 21-30. And the numbers just go down from there (stuff like Maria or some of those War type series go passed the 30 volume mark).
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@terrence Using this site to painlessly compile the numbers for active, current English light novels (i.e. available for purchase in physical or digital form, and not series from years ago that were canceled like FMP or Shana), I came up with 4.6 average volumes per series. Spice & Wolf takes the high with 19; if you count Wolf & Parchment as the same series, then it'd be 20 instead. For interest, if you split it up by publisher, here are the numbers:
- Bookwalker: 2.5 (2 series, one with 2 volumes, one with 3)
- Cross Infinite World: 1.2 (5 series, a single with 2 volumes, the rest with 1)
- JNC: 4.1 (26 series)
- One Peace: 5.5 (2 series, one with 1 volume, one with 10)
- Seven Seas: 1 (4 series)
- Vertical Comics: 3.2 (5 series)
- VIZ Media: 2.3 (3 series, all completed)
- Yen Press: 6.1 (40 series)
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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J-Novel Club has 30 series though. (Plus one autobiography) YP has about 55 series according to MU, but I could have sword it was like 60 before.
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I guess I kind of want to know the average length of English series after factoring in yet to be released volumes too. But that may be more of a challenge to figure out. Like Part-Timer is only at 9 or 10 volumes stateside now, but 18 in Japan, so I'd count that as a license with 18 volumes.
I'm basically more wondering about the overall length of series that are getting picked up for license, and whether we're getting any real short series. Off the top of my head, I got Rokka Braves and Psycome as two midrange series at 6 volumes each. In terms of short series, we have those movie adaptations that are 1 or two volumes, some anime spin-off stuff like Bleach novels and Kingdom Hearts stuff, but not a lot in that 3-4 range "complete" series probably.
That's where I think Sol Press could make a good killing; short but sweet novels that don't overstay their welcome. But then you gotta deal with the pain of picking up unfinished series, like the ones they got.
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@aruseus493 Like I said, I only used that site, apparently they haven't added the last 4 titles JNC picked up.
@Terrence I thought this discussion came about from Sam challenging the idea that 7-8 novel titles are short, and now you yourself are categorizing 6 volumes as "mid range" >_>
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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I personally consider:
- 1-4 - Extremely Short
- 5-7 - Short
- 8-12 - Medium
- 13-17 - Long
- 18+ - Extremely Long
- 40+ - Index Long
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@myskaros said in Sol Press AMA on /r/LightNovels:
@Terrence I thought this discussion came about from Sam challenging the idea that 7-8 novel titles are short, and now you yourself are categorizing 6 volumes as "mid range" >_>
Well, for Yen Press, those are average. Even within their release stuff just in English, you proved that (and if you factor in the volumes out in Japan but not released stateside, the series average probably jumps to 9 or more for them). For me short is 1-4, lower mid range is 5-7, upper middle range 8-12, 13+ is loooooong. But again, that's just how I feel about them, not factoring in actual averages. I personally find anything in upper middle range a bit long in the tooth, but I still wouldn't call 8-9 volumes long. It's just long enough that I feel you have to reread / do research.
And then there is epic length, like Maria and Rokuojouma.
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@terrence I think for what we consider Short LN series needs to be in the context of how long a LN series typically is and how long they aspire to be. I would say 10-12 books are about mid-length. LN are made to be long, I would consider 18+ long.
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@sam-pinansky I call a series short based on the time it takes me to read through it. A single LN volume can go for 4-8 hours, so I usually get through a volume in around 2-3 days just by reading on the bus and before sleeping. Then comes the weekend and I burn through 4 volumes more, so I'd be done with a 6 volume series in a week. That's short for me.
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In Japan there are usually 3 major bottlenecks for any light novel series:
The first is getting a second volume.
The second is getting a 4th volume.
The third is getting an 8th volumeAfter that it's just about keeping up sales.
I consider light novel series with 4 or less volumes "short", and around 10 volumes as medium. 14+ is a long series.LN have been getting longer on average though thanks to so many of them being based on already written, long web novels, which make it less likely they get cancelled after 3 volumes.
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Brief comments from the staff about working on Strongest Gamer (2 QA people, the editor, and the translator).
https://solpress.co/blog/208/strongest-gamer-lets-play-in-another-world-comments-from-the-team
It actually was my first light novel translation ever, so I want to see a lot of comments about it! - Bango (Translator)
Seems the editor was the sole light novel vet on the team (Meiru), the two QA were new to doing QA for an LN too.
@sam-pinansky said in Sol Press AMA on /r/LightNovels:
LN have been getting longer on average though thanks to so many of them being based on already written, long web novels, which make it less likely they get cancelled after 3 volumes.
And even if they do get cancelled, the authors sometimes keep going with the Web Novel. So not all hope is lost of seeing the story's conclusion (just might want to know Japanese unless you want to put up with mangled machine translation or hope against hope for fan TL).
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Amazon links for the two novels:
(link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CGZZT1J) amazon.com/dp/B07CGZZT1J
(link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CJHDY13) amazon.com/dp/B07CJHDY13 -
@terrence $10 is a little high for digital, but I'll still give them a chance but volume 2 won't be insta-buy at that price.
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I'm going to hold off to see if they don't go with any other buying options / retailers. I'm sure it won't be any cheaper, but I definitely prefer a reader that has better built in text to speech support on Android.
Edit: They said on Twitter there will be more digital distributors available soon.
Edit 2:
Battle Divas and Strongest Gamer are now available for pre-order on Amazon, Google Play, and Kobo! Check them out!
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Umm.... Should I let the publisher know that Strongest Gamer on Google Books is the full novel available now (I think it's supposed to be a preorder....)?
The Divas one is just a preorder. Both are just 7.99 on Google Play Books.
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Do... whatever you want...? Not really your problem. If you wanted to be nice and send them an e-mail, I'm sure they would say thank you :v
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@terrence They’ll probably figure it out when sales come in (such as mine). When I realized it was cheaper and easy to transfer onto my Nook I went for it since it looks like it might not be available on Nook for a little while.
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@terrence seems like they fixed it already, it's 9,99 on Google books now
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Haha! Advance copy! Reading it now and the first few pages aren’t anything new, but entertaining at this stage. The way the Dungeon Management skill manifests is pretty funny!
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Does Google Books have DRM-free download like some music does?
