Books/Preorders missing from Amazon
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@Zehd said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
@myskaros said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
Considering how much revenue Amazon purchases bring us and the fact that they haven't banned us altogether, we do still need to follow all their rules.
It's hard to follow rules that are made in absolute secrecy and changed arbitrarily as the mood strikes.
That's my biggest gripe with this whole situation. It's all well and good to say our corporation can remove products from our site because it violates our standards, but if they don't tell the product's creator why it was removed then business like j-novel.club can't adjust to the conditions of that marketplace. Relationships between producers and distributors are based (at least to some degree) on a mutual respect for the agreed upon rules of the game, it is the foundation of commerce. To refuse to reveal which rules of the partnership has been transgressed is commit one of the most heinous crimes that strikes at the very heart of economics. But that's late-stage capitalism folks, while the Market of our economy is a variety of things, it definitely is not "free".
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Yeah, let’s just keep this on amazon is taking down Light Novels and manga from various companies, while also exploring alternatives.
Everyone has their own theories on why this might be happening, but at the end of the day even publishers are left in the dark.
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@Jason-Maranto I've seens some pretty stupid sjw sh*t and I know that some are really puritain.
But looking at Amazon ban record as a whole (not just LN) it doesn't seems to be the result of a woke purge, more like very vague guild-lines regarding lewd content.In fact even looking only at the LN which were ban, kinda contradict the idea that it's a woke ban.
As, sure, I could see NGNL or How not to summon being ban by sjw. But Grimgar already doesn't really fit, and Potion Loli is a female power fantasy with borderline yuri, really not the kind of series they would try to ban.Do you like death, war and misery ?
Do you like badass op loli who let nobody got in their way ?
Do you like vengeance story?
If so then then vote for The girl who ate a death god -
@Raitoiro said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
@Jason-Maranto I've seens some pretty stupid sjw sh*t and I know that some are really puritain.
But looking at Amazon ban record as a whole (not just LN) it doesn't seems to be the result of a woke purge, more like very vague guild-lines regarding lewd content.In fact even looking only at the LN which were ban, kinda contradict the idea that it's a woke ban.
As, sure, I could see NGNL or How not to summon being ban by sjw. But Grimgar already doesn't really fit, and Potion Loli is a female power fantasy with borderline yuri, really not the kind of series they would try to ban.my theory: some individual (or group) has a project to complain about "x" . Amazon's automated response to "complaints about "x"" is to de-list until addressed....and no one is minding the store (bothering to address the complaints/relist or inform JNC to fix) ...and until it hits amazon's pocketbook, it isn't a big enough problem for them to care.
regardless; anytime I can support 'the little guy' vs. Amazon, I do. So lets all just buy JNC ebooks direct from JNC direct and everyone wins. Less $$ outlaid, no format locking to break, bonus content etc. Yea, those 'not in the know' don't get the benefits but what are you going to do?
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Once again everyone, let's stop the speculation, no need to get riled up about reasons you don't have evidence to support.
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@myskaros said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
@Jason-Maranto said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
There is no reason to be considerate of their business if they cannot be considerate of your business. These situations reveal pretty clearly that you are not really business partners... act accordingly.
Considering how much revenue Amazon purchases bring us and the fact that they haven't banned us altogether, we do still need to follow all their rules.
Dangers of a monopsony. :(
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I really hope this can get resolved soon. As this is a big bump in the road for English Light Novel publishers.
I have to imagine this will effect which titles get licensed in the future.
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@the-green-death I agree, but really hope not. Hopefully potential licensing would stay the same with the plan to censor the Amazon versions. Personally I can live with the censored Amazon versions, as I don't buy those. I absolutely abhor censorship, but in this case where another company has completely blindsided another and it isnt the companies choice that it is the only way to keep the product available to the masses, it is reasonable. At least until another solution can present itself.
Speaking of other solutions, which I know is being discussed already within JNC...but figured I'd throw some of my thoughts out there.
On the Amazon listing maybe really advertise the fact.... that it is Amazon Censored content and to instead consider purchasing directly from JNC. Which would give full content, higher quality, and ability to read on any device including any Kindle while being less money(or other retailers for no censorship). And adjust prices in some way that would keep the price less on JNC even if only small margin.
Would then probably need a revision to the memberships to allow free members to purchase credits or some sort of cart system. I don't know what the expected repercussions would be of current or future memebers/p-memebers, but I know it wouldn't affect me any.
I don't know how much time and resources Sam has dedicated to the new site. I think this should really motivate him to try and get it done to have the cleaner more appealing look and better UI for potential customers. Don't want them to get turned away because that can't figure out this one.
Or forget the changing in price and membership stuff, but come up with some way to recognize someone's amazon purchase. Then the people that don't care if its censored can continue doing their thing, but people that do can then get a genuine copy from JNC. Almost like how you had to download patches from the games website to get the full uncensored version after buying game off steam.
I honestly wouldn't want to be in any of these guys shoes. Sorry.
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@Khaos said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
On the Amazon listing maybe really advertise the fact.... that it is Amazon Censored content and to instead consider purchasing directly from JNC.
I imagine something like this has to be worded really carefully, as online marketplaces may not take kindly to sellers advertising to people to buy something offsite.
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@nofairytale Like i said make the censorship obvious in the Kindle Version. Black bars, Fog, Ray of light, etc. You don´t need to say anything in this case. People will seek out the uncensored contend for themself. Violence in Videogames was heavily censored in the past in my Country (Germany) but it was so obvious (People kneeling instead of dying for example) that erveryone was looking for ways to get the uncensored Versions (Neigboring Countrys, etc.).
What i would fear the most is plain removal because you can´t complain or search out alternatives if you don´t even notice the problem.
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@FeClaw True, but I'm sure like I, many others would avoid content(games, books, movies, etc), for the sole reason to not give a company money to serve them censorship. So I think it needs to be said or shown in some form that this is due to Amazon and not JNC.
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@Khaos I have refunded Kindle books before without problem and i would do it in a heartbeat if i saw the censorship. But yeah a "censored" in the product description would be nice but how will Amazon react to that....
Edit: I did mention a putting a disclaimer on the censored site before but in hindsight it could also lead to trouble...
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I don't have a problem if the (short-term) solution is to create "Amazon Editions" of books. Of course I realise it's not quite that easy, first to get permission from the Japanese side to change the content of the books and second to figure out what content it actually was that triggered the removal.
It's probably not a huge deal (to Amazon) to label a book an "Amazon Edition" without detailing exactly what makes it an "Amazon Edition" (ie: censored content). Just replace that with some PR talk "Specially tailored to Amazon Kindle" and let intelligent people figure it out what it actually means (which a quick Google will answer).
What I do not want to see is "Amazon Editions" becoming the standard for other publishing platforms as well, or that it causes some form of self-censorship and influences what JNC will license in the future or what content Japanese publishers will put in books.
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@GHDpro said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
It's probably not a huge deal (to Amazon) to label a book an "Amazon Edition" without detailing exactly what makes it an "Amazon Edition" (ie: censored content). Just replace that with some PR talk "Specially tailored to Amazon Kindle" and let intelligent people figure it out what it actually means (which a quick Google will answer).
Too vague for the average browser on Amazon, they might take it straight and think it's the definitive edition. Just slab "Amazon family-friendly edition" in big letters in the middle of the product description page so it can't be missed, the middle word cursive and bolded. Not enough for Amazon to accuse it of trying to bend the rules, and very clear for most visitors what the implication is...
I don't like censorship, but if we can use Amazon's visibility as potential redirect to other places of purchase I might have to concede. We might have lost the battle but not the war, at least the stuff is available to buy elsewhere...
Edit; Also, note the three word statement with an asterisk, and add a small disclaimer at the bottom of the product page; "This book has had some pages removed to comply with Amazon content guidelines"
If Amazon has some beef with such factual statement added, they're scummier than I thought. -
@Korppi "Family-friendly" has the problem that just removing the illustrations would not be enough; the text describing the situations would have to be cleaned up, as well.
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Imagine this:
Lazy Dungeon Master volume 1, Amazon Family-Friendly Edition
Table of Contents- Cover
- Disclaimer
- About J-Novel Club
- Copyright
Disclaimer: This book has had some pages removed to comply with Amazon content guidelines. While we're not sure what those guidelines are, we can be reasonably sure that no page in this book will violate them.
About J-Novel Club Sign up for our mailing list at J-Novel Club to hear about new releases, or to obtain uncensored and premium versions of our novels.
Copyright [sorry, I don't feel like typing all that in]
[end of book]
It'd be one of the shortest books ever published.
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@Zehd Hi, Amazon Kindle content review team here. We've determined your upload of Lazy Dungeon Master Volume 1, Amazon Family-Friendly Edition contains too many advertisements for the size of the e-book you have uploaded. Please remove the 'About J-Novel Club' section and reupload. THANK YOU!
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I am NOT in favor of editing content for whatever BS reason the Amazon police and/or whoever complained and/or whatever algorithm is causing the problem.
add tags, categorize appropriately, include text in intro description - whatever that's ok
"This is a work of fiction, not intended for children or the easily offended. May contain images/ descriptions typical of the genre."then move the illustrations to the back (less spioler-y that way anyway)
I read banned books
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@Jon-Mitchell Only Amazon will have the censored versions, and no one is forcing anyone to buy there. Platform-based censorship is already a thing with how VNs on PS4 have scenes removed, but on Switch and PC they are unedited. Yea it sucks, but Amazon accounts for 50% of J-Novel's sales, and for amazon, the illustrations themselves are the problem, so no amount of wordplay can save you if it's included. J-Novel cannot afford not to list their works on Amazon, so just getting them on the platform, whatever it takes, is what needs to be done.
I am curious as well though, if moving the illustrations to the back can help. It seems risky however, don't want Amazon just banning J-Novel as a seller outright after they find you sneakily moving "problematic" illustrations to the back for volumes that had previously been removed, hoping the content reviewers won't notice in the re-upload.
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@LegitPancake said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
I am curious as well though, if moving the illustrations to the back can help. It seems risky however, don't want Amazon just banning J-Novel as a seller outright after they find you sneakily moving "problematic" illustrations to the back for volumes that had previously been removed, hoping the content reviewers won't notice in the re-upload.
If moving illustrations to the back stopped takedowns, that means it's not Amazon content reviewers but jagoffs trawling the Kindle Previews and mass reporting that's the cause here.
