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

Rahul Balaggan

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

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

lighthawk96

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.

myskaros

@lighthawk96 said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:

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.

I don't think you're going to get a public answer to this that will satisfy you, but the FAQ has this answer:

Question: Does this mean that you will only be licensing books published by Kadokawa in the future?

Answer: No. Bookwalker sells books from almost every publisher in Japan, and we will also continue to license from all kinds of different publishers.

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

@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.

Sam already answered this on page 1.

jdmmis

@myskaros Missed that, thank you for pointing it out.

BookManiaReader

Well this has come as a surprise. I just hope Kadokawa doesnt' mess with the DRM further down the line. Another worry about major acquisition is since Kadokawa has majority stake though who's going to tell JNC what they can and can't do now? As we know there is Kadokawa Japan and Kadokawa USA. I have no clue how the relationship between both branches works I'm hoping it's the Japanese branch that does most dealings and oversite. Most of the time I've been disappointed in major acquisitions like this because often times I don't see crackdown on branch companies in other countries when they start going wild.

Let's look at prime examples such Shuesha and VIZ. Viz has gotten kinda toxic with some of it's editors. There hasn't been much preemptive crackdown on toxic hires. And then there is the Sony x Funimation buy out (but it doesn't really fit as an example since it was a US to US company buyout but is a prime example of promises broken). While things may not change now, what about in 3 to 5 years? The Sony x Funimation buy had statements saying no changes would happen that would affect production and each corporate policy would be independent from each other. That statement didn't even last 3 years after the buy out. So I am a bit skeptical.

I'm a bit hopeful that and excited, since we'll access to new titles. Like maybe Oda Nobuna's Ambition light novel. But a part of me is worried with all the corporate power struggles going on. Also Kadokawa's movements have been worrying as of late with their cimematic studio, Kadokawa pictures seeming to do more and more partnerships/business with Sony x Funimation.

I was hoping that JNC would eventually grow to be a rival to the established players but a buy out is ringing alarm bells in my head. And I see this acquisition very logical because JNC was turning into a major threat to the established publishers.

I guess within the next 3 years we'll see just how much truth in the FAQ remain. But I'll hold on to my pessimism.

Terabyte

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

@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.

True. I was thinking more along the line of "a bigger company might have a better chance" but clearly that's not the case... 😅

Jon Mitchell

So, I'm guardedly optimistic.
Kadokawa investing in JNC (hopefully) means that IP (Intellectual Properties) that are Kadokawa's (whatever moderately popular anime is out this season), JNC now has a shot at (and they really didn't before). I have no particular issues with Yen Press or Yen On, but they are nowhere near as nimble as JNC is, and I love JNC's business model (serial pre-pubs, active forums etc)

how many titles in the suggestion forums were basically 'hopeless' because they were Kadokawa's IP? (I'm thinking a bunch)

so here is my wish list of 'synergies' I'm hopeful about:

access to some of the printing infrastructure at Hachette = more hard copy titles. (super deluxe stab bound bookworm fan book?)
access to some of the licenses that (maybe) Yen Press holds that they haven't gotten around to translating yet
capital ($$) to build better apps /websites with (better)API's from JNC into bookwalker - bookwalker has an epub reader JNC app/library currently does not
less beholden to Amazon (?)
(edited to add) some kind of synergy with Sony (who owns a minor stake in Kadokawa- and a major stake in Funimation, and is in the process of acquiring Crunchyroll) More Anime and 'Merch' for IP that JNC translates???