J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker
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@jon-mitchell said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
Whatever the 'secret sauce' is that JNC has that allows for FAST, HIGH QUALITY translations/digital publication is what Kadokawa made the investment for. I can't imagine that the model/personnel/culture (whatever it is) will not splash over to YP
Yes! I'm hoping for something along that line :D
YP could certainly learn a thing or two from JNC. -
Certainly surprising news but glad to hear there's no plans to change the business model.
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If this followed the typical pattern of these types of business deals then this has been already in the works for a while now -- possibly several years. Which means that if they had a big problem with how things were run they would have been asking for changes a long time ago. The likely reason why nothing needs to change right away is because there have already been gradual changes going behind the scenes for months now.
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As long as JNC doesn't implement Bookwalkers horrible DRM I am quite happy with this news. Kadokawa has some nice titles.
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@saskir said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
As long as JNC doesn't implement Bookwalkers horrible DRM I am quite happy with this news. Kadokawa has some nice titles.
I don't currently use bookwalker, is their DRM worse than anyone else's? (Amazon, Apple, etc?) maybe I need to start a new topic: "How do I consolidate an eBook collection, migrating books from applebooks, kindle, bookwalker, nook etc. to all be in one place?"
I read banned books
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If this partnership, or acquisition, means cooperation with Kadokawa’s other properties then I would hope to see some titles migrate over here. As an example, the delay between Volume 15 and 16 of Mahouka was pretty bad and I’d wish that series could be released digitally first rather than suffer a year and three week long hiatus. I’m mostly here for Bookworm and getting that weekly fix is one thing I want to stay consistent, along with the forums and subscriptions seeing as the translation won’t finish the current volumes for a few more years.
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I wonder if this will help JNC move into the "real publisher" category in the Kindle store instead of being treated like the authors self-publishing?
That might help with the censorship garbage.
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New series sounds fun. Currently there are few active series im following and couple extra like Realist Hero which we are waiting new book to release in JP. So backing up by larger company sounds really nice. I hope it wont effect JNC's quality and bussiness ethics (yes, i read Q&A parts).
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@jon-mitchell said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
hiring away some editors/managers from JNC to YP?
They are ours, YP can't have them!
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@jon-mitchell said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
@saskir said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
As long as JNC doesn't implement Bookwalkers horrible DRM I am quite happy with this news. Kadokawa has some nice titles.
I don't currently use bookwalker, is their DRM worse than anyone else's? (Amazon, Apple, etc?) maybe I need to start a new topic: "How do I consolidate an eBook collection, migrating books from applebooks, kindle, bookwalker, nook etc. to all be in one place?"
You can only read in their app, no way to sideload those books onto any e-ink reader and as far as I know there is no real way to strip it. So even then you can not load it into your e-reader.
This was why I never bothered with "Combat Baker" till it was available von JNC. Even though I liked the premise.
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I am.. .worried.
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As a day one subscriber to JNC, I’ve been very impressed to see their growth in action and this sort of next step makes a lot of sense given the market. They’ve gotten so big, it makes sense that outside infrastructure can be of benefit.
That said, I hope that even in 4-5 years we don’t see too many corporate politics creep in. I don’t think you can underestimate how much the nimbleness of JNC being a small scrappy start up has been a part of their appeal.
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@the-green-death Some of that is just inevitable as we grow, independent or not.
There's a big difference in nimbleness with a company with "1" employee (me) and "10", or "20"... -
Some people have found some more details released on Kadokawa's investor relation site:
https://ssl4.eir-parts.net/doc/9468/ir_material_for_fiscal_ym7/99266/00.pdfI have some official comments on this:
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There are no plans (long term or otherwise) to stop selling premium epubs. Having a direct way of selling our product is a crucial back-stop in case 3rd party stores go flakey.
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Any series we are currently printing will continue to be printed by us (that includes ones we have announced we will be printing)
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Yen Press publishing the popular titles of ours in print is a possibility for strengthening our overall print business, and at this time, just a possibility.
Please take this as an official correction to the IR presentation
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any plans to cross-over the e-commerce sites? i.e. use premium credits on bookwalker or "coins" on JNC ??
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@jon-mitchell No plans, and I'd say it's kind of unlikely. We'd have to come to some sort of agreement on value on each site, etc, and it'd complicate reporting for both.
And from a user perspective, it's not really something people would care that much about. -
@aruseus493 said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
Everything answered basically boiled down to nothing really it seems. Like, JNC might get some data from BW in their licensing talks? But nothing really publicly recognizable at this stage.
I guess my questions would be:
- Any chance for bringing the BW exclusive perks to the JNC editions. I know How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord and Arifureta had them.
- What is the time frame before we actually see some kind of positive effect of the acquisition? Can we also get some kind of announcement when there is one that consumers can readily recognize? (Stuff like Kadokawa licensing doors being open, faster licensing pipeline, getting Premium Epubs for YP series, etc.) The reason there is a lot of general worry or confusion is that there isn't really much clear in the way of what both sides get from this acquisition that is supposed to directly benefit consumers. So having some kind of announcement when something does happen would help.
To add a new question to this list, is there any chance this Kadokawa partnership can lead to some bolder licenses in the ecchi category? We have a general understanding that Amazon has basically started neutering the Western LN Industry by banning stuff since multiple publishers have basically confirmed that they're starting to avoid stuff with any skin shown on the cover or in the color inserts.
So again, I'm curious if there's any chance that with Kadokawa's support that we can possibly see some push-back against the pretty self-centered censorship that's been plaguing JNC's licenses and potentially see even more stuff that would normally be banned.
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@aruseus493
I have a way to get an inkling. Does Bookwalker have titles/categories not found on Amazon?I don't want to go off on a tangent (but apparently I am) - there is a whole thread(s) about amazon and censorship- it seems that Amazon will sell anything as long as it's labeled what they believe it to be (I did a search for 'Tentai Books' and stumbled on tentacle porn) why Amazon believes (or a group of busybodies believe) that LN are for kids and that children need to be 'protected' from titles with scantily clad females on the covers?? I haven't found anything 'worse' in a LN than appears in a rated PG-13 movie or what's on regular TV (South Park or whatever)...but I digress
JNC was selling via Bookwalker before, maybe now Kadokawa/JNC will get a higher profit margin on Bookwalker sales for JNC titles than before---yea, they don't have to care as much about every title being palatable to Amazon- but it's still either going to be more work (to format to appease Bezos and co) or a lower potential return (smaller potential market/not selling via Amazon) so I don't see the floodgates opening
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@aruseus493 my understanding of the Amazon situation is that Amazon has a process in place to automatically de-list stuff when a certain number of reports are received from end users flagging books as indecent, and that they don't have enough human staff to deal with manual review and/or appeals. I believe this process also only applies to self-published materials, and JNC currently uses the self-publishing option because they weren't big enough for a real publisher account.
With that understanding, if Kadokawa can get them a real publisher account, then the problem might go away (or at least become less severe).
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I doubt it considering yen press has had stuff taken down.
