Upcoming JNC light novel price increases

myskaros

We wanted to inform everyone that J-Novel Club will be raising the price of our light novels while also raising our rates for freelancers. The new price for light novels will be $7.99 (previously $6.99), and will affect our entire library, not just new books. The price increase will go into effect the first week of August, though we can't give an exact date since it will depend on how quickly each storefront updates their prices. The new freelancer rates are already in effect.

For now, light novels bought using J-Novel Coins here on our website will be unaffected. Yes, even after the price increases in August, the price for light novel ebooks redeemed directly through our website will still be 699 coins. If you prefer to buy from another store, though, the current price will only last for another few weeks. If we do increase the coin cost for light novels in the future, we will also give advance notice like this.

Ebook prices and freelancer rates for manga are not changing at this time.

We ask for everyone's understanding that in order to pay the translators, editors, and quality assurance staff more, the price we charge for our products must also go up.

As a reminder, any remaining Premium Credits will automatically be converted to J-Novel Coins on August 2, 2022. While there should be no advantage to keeping your credits around in lieu of just converting them to coins now, we wanted to give the option to manually convert them in case there were any questions or doubts about the new system, and to allow members to "zero out" their credits in the way they choose.

Please let us know what questions or concerns you have here and we will do our best to answer them!

SomeOldGuy

So, those of us who buy exclusively direct from JNC will not see the price increase at this time? It's only applicable if we buy through a retailer?

Kurzaa

I never understood why people would pay more to purchase drm content from somewhere else when you would miss out on the bonus content.

But as I read it, nothing on the j-novel site is changing at the moment and if it does, we will again get advanced notice? Thanks.

admin

@Kurzaa Correct. Thinking people will realize that it's probably smart of us to do things in steps, where the first step is this. But we'll make sure to give everyone plenty of advanced notice on any further pricing changes.

grobinson2k1

@Kurzaa said in Upcoming JNC light novel price increases:

I never understood why people would pay more to purchase drm content from somewhere else when you would miss out on the bonus content.

But as I read it, nothing on the j-novel site is changing at the moment and if it does, we will again get advanced notice? Thanks.

Because people start buying the light novels on Kindle and then only come to JNC afterwards?

Windsagio

@grobinson2k1 Also, some people don't like the default readers or the JNC app (the old JNC app kept me from being a subscriber for about a year, before they redid it).

Now there's even less reason though.

The thing to remember is that even at the lower prices, JNC gets more money from direct purchases anyways (because they don't have to pay Amazon their cut), to the point I'd speculate delaying or whatever the price change on site purchases is meant to encourage direct sales.

BartzBB

@Kurzaa
Unfortunately people don't know that they could but directly from the publishers. Other than JNC and some new publishers all LN English publishers only sell their titles on other stores so people just got used to it and couldn't imagine buying directly.

Geezer Weasalopes

@Kurzaa said in Upcoming JNC light novel price increases:

I never understood why people would pay more to purchase drm content from somewhere else when you would miss out on the bonus content.

In my case it was taking a while to actually follow the links at the back of the books to the JNC site, because, well, so?
And then a while longer to really penetrate how much and what kind of bonus content there was.
Plus sitting down and doing the math.

As a result, there are a fair number of works that I've purchased twice, and now that you can get manga direct from JNC there'll be more of that again over time.

The odd thing in my case was the period of time where I had a standard membership prior to utilizing any of the benefits of having one, let alone a premium membership.
I just looked at it as a way of helping insure JNC stayed in business, kinda a regularly scheduled subsidy.

poisonedbite

I'm struggling to figure out how you justify inflation on a digital product with no shipments or overhead besides what you already pay your staff and in licensing fees.

Kill it with fire.

Thecardq

@poisonedbite They are increasing freelancer pay (and probably dedicated staff too at some point, but that's not part of this announcement), it's only natural that lightnovel cost would increase as well. It's also important to note that pricing on JNC itself will remain the same for now.

yeahreally

I don't mind reasonable price increases so long as translation quality remains as high as it has been.

Travis Butler

@poisonedbite said in Upcoming JNC light novel price increases:

I'm struggling to figure out how you justify inflation on a digital product with no shipments or overhead besides what you already pay your staff and in licensing fees.

…

… - - - …

Because the staff deserves cost-of-living increases? Including, as the initial post spelled out, translators also getting pay increases?

Not to mention, digital infrastructure prices also go up?

And Japanese publishers are also seeing cost increases and are probably raising licensing fees in response?

Inflation doesn’t magically go away even if you’re dealing with digital products.

Sure, it sucks having to pay more for ebooks, but I’d rather feel better knowing the people who get these books to us are getting better wages.

Geezer Weasalopes

@poisonedbite
Because the cost of living for your staff is going up.
Nice employers take that into account.

How would you like it if you had no cost-of-living increases, if your pay stayed the same for years on end despite the cost of everything you have to pay for to stay alive going up?
That's what you seem to be arguing in favor of.

HamsterExAstris

This post is deleted!

Geezer Weasalopes

@HamsterExAstris said in Upcoming JNC light novel price increases:

@Travis-Butler said in Upcoming JNC light novel price increases:

Because the staff deserves cost-of-living increases? Including, as the initial post spelled out, translators also getting pay increases?

On new contracts going forward, was my understanding. I didn't think JNC was cutting the translators of everything released over the last five years another check.

When you pay someone wages, the money to cover that payment needs to already be in your possession.
It's not a credit economy.
Cash on the barrel.
The money has to be there first.
If the employer determines to pay staff more than they had been, consider it a plus that they also decide the money should actually be there.
Given that freelance translators generally don't have a bargaining unit, you have to consider this a unilateral move on JNC management's part, and that it bodes well that they determined to make sure they could pay more than they had been.

jpwong

@Geezer-Weasalopes Plus you see this in the print industry as well, new book batches are printed with the new price on the covers, so retailers are going to charge that price on the new versions of the book. In what's probably both an advantage and a disadvantage, digital books have no leftover stock to sell at the old price point like a physical book would, so the price increase simply takes effect immediately on all sales moving forward from the date the increase takes effect.

killerrin

Glad to see that Freelancers are getting a pay raise. Just because they're freelancing doesn't mean they're any less important to the industry. And anything that helps them earn their fair share while in these times of high inflation is a good thing :)

daytona

@poisonedbite A digital product still has costs associated with it - the compute/storage/network infrastructure, and electricity.

And if you haven't noticed, electricity cost (and energy cost in general) are rising this year.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/03/business/energy-environment/high-electric-bills-summer.html

poisonedbite

@Geezer-Weasalopes said in Upcoming JNC light novel price increases:

@poisonedbite
Because the cost of living for your staff is going up.
Nice employers take that into account.

How would you like it if you had no cost-of-living increases, if your pay stayed the same for years on end despite the cost of everything you have to pay for to stay alive going up?
That's what you seem to be arguing in favor of.

Because that's how most of the world works? We don't magically get more money for continuing to do the same job.

HarmlessDave

@poisonedbite said in Upcoming JNC light novel price increases:

@Geezer-Weasalopes said in Upcoming JNC light novel price increases:

@poisonedbite
Because the cost of living for your staff is going up.
Nice employers take that into account.

How would you like it if you had no cost-of-living increases, if your pay stayed the same for years on end despite the cost of everything you have to pay for to stay alive going up?
That's what you seem to be arguing in favor of.

Because that's how most of the world works? We don't magically get more money for continuing to do the same job.

You never get raises at work? I'd change jobs.

I get salary increases for both performance and cost of living, which is good because my rent just got a big jump.