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

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.

hiroto

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

@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.

Maybe it is 100% majority.

xdrfiredogx

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

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

@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.

Maybe it is 100% majority.

😳

pcj

If they have over 50%, they essentially own it because they can outvote everyone else at the shareholder meetings. Anyone with less than that just gets to share the profits.

But from the sound of the FAQ, basically J-Novel gets to keep going just like it has been, and Kadokawa gets a cut of the profits in exchange for assistance with licensing and legal (JP publishers get to talk to someone local they're familiar with for licensing, and Kadokawa's probably got lawyers with enough clout to chase Amazon when they de-list the titles on Kindle). At least that's my hope for how the arrangement is set up. :-)

Sabruness

@pcj That's what i'm hoping for as well, that Kadokawa is sensible enough not to try and tinker with something that works extremely well already. That's the unfortunate danger of acquisitions like this sometimes... Only time will tell.

On the bright side, as was mentioned in the FAQ, this would really open the scope of series to be licensed which is always a good thing.

Terabyte

I wonder if this gives JNC a shot at licensing some Alpha Polis LNs/manga. Would be a welcome news... 👀

lighthawk96

My very big question is, can JNC still go afelter titles that they and us, the readers want, or will we just get whatever Kadokawa says they get. There is still a lot of titles out there that I'm hopeful for, but... where exactly does this leave us.

BartzBB

@terabyte
Yen Press was acquired by Kadokawa years ago and even they weren't able to get a license with AlphaPolis.

Rather than a problem of JNC I think AlphaPolis' stance on international licensing is the problem.

jdmmis

@lighthawk96 That and the DRM are my main two questions I would like answered, but I'm guessing we will have to wait for time to tell us.

I'm hoping for a positive outcome. JNC have done a fantastic job so far. So here is hoping for more of the same.