J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker

lighthawk96

@lighthawk96
I too am very worried. This was a complete surprise, so I don't know what to think.

grobinson2k1

First off, I am hopeful. I am hoping for the best of all worlds and the magic they contain.

I am looking at the benefits of JNC having better access for new titles. I think that this level of investment shows that Japanese publishers seem to care about our interest in light novels being translated into English. Likewise, I've purchased digital books from Bookwalker and wasn't satisficed with the platform. So, I proceeded to repurchase them on Kindle. This seems to be a 'flag' that might just mean nothing, or everything.

Anpan

I'm also very worried, these acquisitions rarely mean something good for the customers. At best, things stay the same. At this point the least I'm expecting short to mid terms is price increases and/or introduction of DRM, because, you know, big corps sure love that shit.

I can already see them trying to bring prices more "in line" with stuff from Yen Press for instance, and there have been some serious price increases and loss of translation quality (lots of typos and grammar errors) compared to the time I bought Spice & Wolf novels from them.

myskaros

The FAQ has now been posted! Please see the opening posts for the link!

Anpan

@myskaros There was no mention of DRM: Will this be introduced? Asking because this is a 100% deal breaker for me and the major reason I'm buying from JNC.

Taelian

Read the FAQ. Second the concern that nothing mentions DRM but the fact that JNC keeps its own platform makes me hopeful I can still buy here.

More licenses would be a definite benefit. I've been happy with JNC's translation quality and VERY happy with the speed, so hopefully this will just be same-but-better.

Taedirk

@anpan One would hope the "Premium epubs, credits, and other features will remain the same" would include that, but explicitly stating it would be nice.

Anpan

@taedirk Exactly why I was asking. I've had plenty of terrible experiences with acquisitions, so I like seeing explicit statements.

Sam Pinansky

@anpan We have no intention of adding any DRM to our premium epubs, nor discontinuing premium epub service. But as usual I try not to crow too loudly about it...

Taedirk

@sam-pinansky said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:

But as usual I try not to crow too loudly about it...

When one of the alternative marketplaces' stance is "you can only read in our app, no sideloading onto any e-ink devices", you should totally crow loudly about it.

myskaros

@taedirk I think the idea is if it gets "too loud" then someone might come and start cracking down on it.

Raitoiro

Glad to see that everything that made JNC great will stay the same.
Also, I know it's probably included in the "nothing is going to change" but just to be sure will that deal have any impact on the printed version for the 3 series where it's handled by Seven Seas?

lighthawk96

Ok. Where did I miss the Q&A link.

Rahul Balaggan

@lighthawk96

The 2nd post in this topic, https://forums.j-novel.club/post/129829

https://j-novel.club/blog/j-novel-bookwalker

lighthawk96

@rahul-balaggan
Much appreciated.

Sam Pinansky

@raitoiro Unless I hear from Seven Seas they aren't interested in printing them anymore, but I think they will be happy with continuing the sublicense for the ongoing series.

Jaquobus

Well, congrats to the successful establishment of the partnership and

Question: Is Sam ever going to finish "My Little Sister Can Read Kanji" volume 5?

Answer: I did! It's out! Go buy the e-book already

good to know that you still know what your readership really caresabout ;-)

Tube

To be honest I was rather worried there. Kadokawa only acquiring a majority and not all of JNC helps ease those worries a little and puts some weight behind the words that nothing will change. At least I feel that not selling all of JNC (immediately?) will slow down any bigger changes considerably.

hiroto

@tube said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:

To be honest I was rather worried there. Kadokawa only acquiring a majority and not all of JNC helps ease those worries a little and puts some weight behind the words that nothing will change. At least I feel that not selling all of JNC (immediately?) will slow down any bigger changes considerably.

Weird. Kadokawa side annoucement says they acquired JNC and say nothing of "majority stake".

Even the title of annoucement is quite different that JNC annoucement says "Partnership", Kadokawa one is "Aquisition".

https://ir.kadokawa.co.jp/global/news_release/20210428_u2iza_en.pdf

Tube

@hiroto Yeah it seems there's a difference. Per OP of this thread:

A majority stake in J-Novel Club has recently been acquired by Kadokawa.