New J-Novel Coins are here!
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My 2
centcoinsFirst, I'm glad I can finally get premium, non-drm BEATLESS for here! That's the first thing I check on the coin announcement.
Now, I have to say I'm not such a huge fan of store credit system. Remember MS Points? They eventually decided to get rid of it. To be fair, you are allowed to buy any number of points and 1 points = 1 cent (USD) directly, so it isn't much of a problem. But it's kinda raise the question of why don't just use USD then? Or use both, so someone who does not have coins doesn't have to go through two steps to buy the book.
I guess my conclusion is it's an annoyance but acceptable. Again, finally can get BEATLESS after multiple years wait, so there's that at least
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@hyper Because that would probably raise all sorts of weird issues with their app store bundles in other countries and you absolutely would not want to be mistaken for some sort of currency exchange app.
It would be nice if the site would just offer to buy the necessary coins to get a book if you're lacking, though with a minimum 500 coin purchase I could see how that might end up causing confusion, especially once more non-standard priced titles like manga start coming in which will leave people with potentially all sorts of weird volumes of coins.
Though to be honest, now that manga is (eventually) on the table for DRM free high quality direct downloads, it puts a few things onto my wants list that I wouldn't mind JNC grabbing that I wouldn't have considered pushing for before.
The only real downside for coins vs credits is that coins opens the door to eventual price inflation on titles, though I would imagine most people would have spent whatever they're sitting on right now by the time that happens.
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@hyper said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:
To be fair, you are allowed to buy any number of points and 1 points = 1 cent (USD) directly, so it isn't much of a problem. But it's kinda raise the question of why don't just use USD then?
This is just a guess, but I think it's to minimize the amount that middlemen can skim out of the transaction.
If their credit card payment processor is taking a fixed-amount off of every sale, it would advantage J-Novel Club to encourage people to not buy each book as a separate transaction, and instead buy coins ahead of time. Unclear if this would work out in the current system since the price of coins would never change - however, if they did sales on coins with even the tiniest of discounts, they could drive larger transactions that way. (I suspect that the Cyber Monday discounts on credits that we used to have may have been initially motivated something like this, but my likely-inaccurate understanding is that fixed-per-transaction costs are normally only charged to very small merchants, so J-Novel Club has likely outgrown the need for such things entirely.)
Similarly, if app-store owners like Google or Apple take a 30% cut off the top of purchases made through apps (which they do), then it advantages J-Novel Club to do monetary transactions outside the app. However, customers want to be able to unlock books through the app, so a "pay now, pick out the books later" system addresses both concerns, at the expense of a little bit of pain.
Lastly, some users (like me) prefer it this way. Credit card transactions are clumsy and slow, bounce the user around to a bunch of different websites, and security minded users are likely on high-alert during the whole process because financial information is at stake. Going through a credit card checkout every single time I want a new book would be exhausting. I'd rather buy my coins up front once a year (so that I can take my time and make sure nothing fishy is going on and all the payment processor pages are who they say they are), and they get my books in one-click after that.
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Fixed price fees on credit actually do get charged to larger businesses, which is why a place tends to lose money on the sale if you're buying less than a dollar on credit. Just larger chain stores can absorb that as a cost of doing business through the margin they make on the bigger transactions (digital only businesses may be different than brick and mortar stores though).
If we do have a sale similar to the previous credit sales, I do intend to load up on a single transaction rather than doing multiple small transactions, so I'm hoping we do get some more information about how any potential sale will end up working (or if they're simply no longer going to do sales at all) so that I can plan for how to handle things once my existing credits/coins clears out.
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Stripe is 2.9% + 30¢ per successful transaction. So yes, it's better if you buy in bigger amounts, and that's the main reason that limit is in place.
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Wow I didn't expect to get all these very thoughtful replies with good points all around. Thanks folks.
I understand the reason for lower limit per transaction. It's just that I feel it'll be more transparent to just say it outright with actual currency--no fee for >6 USD (or whatever currency) etc. Otherwise a small fee added, or no small purchase at all. It'll look bad but that's more honest IMO. Again, I will say what they decided on isn't bad so I wouldn't complain too much.
Now, on the sale topic. My speculation is that there will no longer be any extra sale for coins on top of premium/member discount. Instead, we will have subsets of books/series on sale in rotation. In other words, there will be no way to buy cheaper coins, but occasionally we can buy books will less coins. If that is true, I'll be disappointed to be honest. In the old system I can (and happily) buy a whole lot of credits on sale and can be confident that I'll get the best deal for any future books I want on release. Now I will have to wait for sale if I want the best deal, which will make me be more reluctant to get the books day one. I hope I'm wrong.
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@hyper said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:
I understand the reason for lower limit per transaction. It's just that I feel it'll be more transparent to just say it outright with actual currency--no fee for >6 USD (or whatever currency) etc. Otherwise a small fee added, or no small purchase at all. It'll look bad but that's more honest IMO. Again, I will say what they decided on isn't bad so I wouldn't complain too much.
The issue there is that the price is different based on if you're a non-member, a member (5% off) or a premium member (15% off) because you can buy coins and then just sit on them and let your membership lapse if for example you're just following a few series and plan to access the pre-pubs by simply pre-ordering the volumes rather than via membership. Some people did this while we were on the credits system, so there's no reason to believe they won't continue to see people follow series in this fashion in the future.
Seeing as how they're already giving a price differential between membership tiers, a coin sale wouldn't be off the table, but it does open up options to other types of sales. I think JNC is aware that if they change how sales work it's going to change buying habits and we've discussed it a bit up-thread. All that's left to see is what actually happens.
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looks like we got our first
freeincluded with membership coin drop today. -
I cancelled my membership (set to expire next month), because I am currently only reading one series as pre-pub and pre-ordering it grants me access to pre-pub too. While calcelling, I deleted my payment information.
Now, trying to redeem a book for coins I already have on my account, the site complains that I do not have a payment method on my account. I have enough coins and no need to add a payment method to buy more. Is this a bug, intentional "feature", or just an unfortunate result of other things? An easy workaround is ofcourse adding my payment information back, but I feel that is unnecessary as I already have the coins needed to redeem the book.
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@Tube Thanks for reporting this, it's a bug and will be fixed
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@Tube Can you confirm this is fixed?
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@chocolatkey It is fixed indeed. That was fast, thank you!
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M myskaros referenced this topic on
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@myskaros said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:
here!
There's expired information on that page.
With the addition of Apple Pay and Google Pay, you'll be able to buy Coins directly on our mobile app very soon!
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So, I buy a subscription for 1 year on the expectation of being able to redeem for 1 Ebook each month, and now the site is telling me that I'm only getting 699 coins, but some Ebooks cost 999 coins (Specifically mentions the title Beatless).
Did I just get scammed out of 30% of my purchase?
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@Tremarl The first post in this thread has a link:
J-Novel Club has officially converted from credits to coins! Read more about this switch here!
Which mentions:
Since Coins have a smaller value, it will be much easier for us to add new products to our lineup at the price it needs to be. Right off the bat, you can now redeem 999 Coins for the Beatless Premium eBooks! We're also working on getting Premium Manga on J-Novel Club!
From what I understand, Beatless used to not be purchasable at all through JNC because its contents make it more expensive than the standard value, meaning it couldn’t be sold at “one credit.” The coin system allows them to vary prices (like for manga and such), so now it’s available at the current cost.
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Yeah not a fan of the change to coin system and how JNC handled Beatless. I couldn't even read it when they were re-translating it and they flat out said that the ebook wasn't available for purchase in support email. And now this.
Been enjoying the service since the very beginning but luckily my membership will end in September.
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@DarKraD said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:
Yeah not a fan of the change to coin system and how JNC handled Beatless. I couldn't even read it when they were re-translating it and they flat out said that the ebook wasn't available for purchase in support email. And now this.
Been enjoying the service since the very beginning but luckily my membership will end in September.
So...
It hadn't been available for purchase from JNC directly because it cost more and there was no mechanism in place for more than one price.
At that time it wasn't available for purchase as an eBook direct from JNC so support told the truth.
They've now changed things a tad, making it possible to purchase items that had a different base price.And this is cause for canceling one's membership?
Clearly I'm in my dotage, because I'm not following the reasoning behind your position.
All your libraries are belong to us. | Those who do not read shall not eat.
Help me, Satomi-san. You're my only hope. | Fight! Yurika!
Croquettes, Baguettes, and Books, oh my! -
@MasterLillyclaw My worry is that this will create "tiers" of books, which just causes overall consumer confusion, and in this situation potential loss.
The idea of 1 credit 1 book was super simple and worked really well for Audible.
I'd have thought the difference is negotiation power with rights holders might be the cause of a difference in policy between the two services (but it looks like Kadokawa own J-novel; not exactly a small company)
I got a subscription literally for two of the series Quof was translating - Lazy Dungeon Master and Ascendence of a Bookworm.
I'm now really, hoping that during my subscription, the series doesn't jump in price defeating the point of my subscription in the first place.
Although, at the time I took the subscription I didn't realize you could read current translations, which is very generous, which gives me a whole bitter/sweet feeling about this change.
I guess normal membership would have suited me fine and probably what i'll move to, as I've no guarantee that the subscription will get me the book I want in future, so might as well buy coins as and when they're actually needed. [Otherwise, yes this whole 99 thing will leave me with waste balances ._.]
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@Weasalopes said in New J-Novel Coins are here!:
So...
It hadn't been available for purchase from JNC directly because it cost more and there was no mechanism in place for more than one price.
At that time it wasn't available for purchase as an eBook direct from JNC so support told the truth.
They've now changed things a tad, making it possible to purchase items that had a different base price.And this is cause for canceling one's membership?
Clearly I'm in my dotage, because I'm not following the reasoning behind your position.
Sorry, my English is not the best so I might not be able to convey what I meant.
I never said that the support email lied about the availability of Beatless. I was more mad about it was advertised on JNC but I wasn't able to read it when they were translating. I had to buy the ebook someplace else. $20 to rebuy the whole series is not that big of the deal anyway.
The one thing makes me canceling my membership is like what the user above mentioned. I bought the membership and credit due to the fact that 1 credit = 1 book. Now I have to worry about some series on here will have price jump and such. And I will not be able to get 1 ebook with premium credit.
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@Tremarl It depends a lot on how many books you buy on here; If the average is near or over 1 book a month, you're better off sticking with the premium membership unless and until books priced higher than the monthly coins becomes the norm (at least in the series you collect). The extra $5.50 a month is cheaper than buying 699 coins each month, after all ($6.64 for someone with a regular membership, I believe).
A book every 2 months or less and you can safely drop a subscription tier.
Beatless, for the moment, seems very much a special case. But if other series follow suit, you can always do the cost/benefit comparison again then. For now, you could potentially lose money by changing your subscription based on a speculative 'maybe'.
