J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker
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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.
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IMHO it's a concerted attack by a small group of self important busybodies going after the genre of "translated LN from Japanese to English" in order to 'protect the children' who are the source of the complaints. They don't really care about how non-offensive the books actually are...they just saw more skin than they like. They don't complain about the overt pornography on Amazon because it isn't categorized conveniently for them. JNC's size is irrelevant. So to bring the discussion back on track...I doubt the new partnership will make much of a difference (vs changes already made) relative to amazon, but the partnership does create closer ties to bookwalker - and I'd expect efforts in marketing etc to be directed there vs towards Bezos...now if we can get the kindle (device) people to allow a bookwalker app...(I know that'll never happen) or JNC to put ebooks in a kindle device friendly format (for premiums) ...all this will be moot
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I'm really excited for the next set of new licenses if JNC can get some of the known tiles in Kadokawa thanks to this partnership then this is worth it, but if not then I don't know why they even bothered. The only way for us readers to see the effects of this is from the next set of licenses.
I'm expecting great things from JNC and I hope they won't disappoint.
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@bartzbb said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
I'm really excited for the next set of new licenses if JNC can get some of the known tiles in Kadokawa thanks to this partnership then this is worth it, but if not then I don't know why they even bothered. The only way for us readers to see the effects of this is from the next set of licenses.
The next set of licenses were most likely negotiated before this partnership, so the partnership most likely won't have any effect on that. We'll probably have to wait a while before the now "internal data" on JNC's success leads to easier licensing of Kadokawa titles.
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My feedback is that I like the new JNC interface better than Bookwalkers. I am getting duplicates of Bookworm, because the bookwalker app on android stopped working on my old tablet & the windows app only gives a passable LN reading experience.
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As a librarian, I really hope this means we'll see more physical releases of JNC's books. There are so many good things here that I would love to suggest for the collection (we already have quite a few that you've printed, like 'A Realist Hero' and 'If it's for My Daughter' 'Sexiled' and 'Otherside Picnic') but some of my favorites, like 'I Refuse to be Your Enemy' 'Deathbound Duke's Daughter' 'Black Summoner' and 'Sorcerous Stabber Orphen' are still digital only.
Libraries are actually a huge help in boosting book sales by reaching out to individuals who might not otherwise consider purchasing the book.
Fingers crossed! -
@star-auros said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
As a librarian, I really hope this means we'll see more physical releases of JNC's books. There are so many good things here that I would love to suggest for the collection (we already have quite a few that you've printed, like 'A Realist Hero' and 'If it's for My Daughter' 'Sexiled' and 'Otherside Picnic') but some of my favorites, like 'I Refuse to be Your Enemy' 'Deathbound Duke's Daughter' 'Black Summoner' and 'Sorcerous Stabber Orphen' are still digital only.
Libraries are actually a huge help in boosting book sales by reaching out to individuals who might not otherwise consider purchasing the book.
Fingers crossed!I don’t remember how many books I borrowed from the library that I bought later as a youngster…. A lot of accidental finds even!
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USA book sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble have a centuries-long history of banning books like Ulysses, 1984, and Fahrenheit 451 at the behest of special interest groups and should never be trusted.
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@proffaust You know, I just realized... Amazon's name might make even more sense given their crackdown on things prudes might dislike, since it comes from the Ancient Greek "a-" meaning without and "mazon" meaning breasts. So... no boobs on Amazon? I mean... definitely how they're acting >_> <_<
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Bookmaker has bibliophile princess vol 6. Does that mean you will start translating?
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Sorry that was suppose to be book walker
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@slush56-kjtqis9 said in J-Novel Club Announces New Business Partnership with Kadokawa and Bookwalker:
Bookmaker has bibliophile princess vol 6. Does that mean you will start translating?
[Insert standard canned response #1 here]
J-Novel, while also being a subsidiary of Kadokawa, must negotiate for every volume separately without regard to who the Japanese publisher is.
Said negotiations do not commence until the Japanese editions hit the shelves.
The negotiations take time, and are not guaranteed to prove successful.
Translation activities do not commence until after a license is signed.
J-Novel does not comment upon there even being negotiations until they announce that the first pre-pub section will be released in x days.In short, Bibliophile Princess Volume 6 being released in Japan means Bibliophile Princess Volume 6 has been released in Japan, and J-Novel will say absolutely nothing other than a canned response until they are ready to post pre-pub chapters, including not saying that negotiations failed, if they failed.
