January 2023 Livestream!

jpwong

I would imagine the issue is are any of the LN publishers large enough to bother to get amazon to listen to them? Working with amazon actually requires someone at amazon to care about the issue at all in the first place.

endoftheline

@jpwong "someone at amazon to care"... I know what that's intended to mean, but clearly, it's getting the right person to care that's the problem. Having one member of proletariat care is no different from having nobody care, because they are easily shutdown for business reasons.

admin

@Windsagio It's a complicated matter that affects more than Amazon. It's about getting stores to update to latest BISAC standards when most places won't upgrade from the 2014 standards...

It's not unlike trying to get people to upgrade from Windows XP back in the day...

GeorgeMTO

@admin Pretty sure if I tried (and not even tried very hard), I could still find people using XP today.

jpwong

@GeorgeMTO You should see what still uses XP these days, some ATMs still use it.

Ran

This quote from the Lady Albert LN (one of the titles licensed here) seems really fitting :

Such stories may be a dime a dozen, but that is by no means a shortcoming. On the contrary, following certain tropes is often a surefire way to win over a specific niche market!

I think it's my favorite license from this set too; it's absolutely hilarious.

Windsagio

@Ran Hah, I saw and loved that quote! Just the right level of meta!

Eleore

This post is deleted!

Eleore

@admin
That's very interesting info; thank you for that.

On classic series, that makes so much sense. For example, I love Slayers and followed the prepubs, but since I already own the Japanese volumes I decided to only get the Collectors' Edition. Having the same series 3 times felt a little excessive ahaha ~~(I say that, but I'm buying both the junior bunko and English print releases of Bookworm)~~.

There are very precious few series I could justify having multiples of, and in terms of light novels, I'm thinking the only one left would be The Twelve Kingdoms. I already own the bunko set and the few Tokyopop worked on, and would more than happily get ebooks/prints for it if it gets rescued.

I'm assuming everyone has at least one series they cherish to that degree, but unless we overlap to some degree... well, it's not really a viable market.

Windsagio

@Eleore Granting this is dependent on how much discretionary income people have and how they spend it, but I also do 'support spends', I buy the ones I'm actively following in the hopes it keeps them supported. Of course I also don't buy the JP versions, so it's not a perfect parallel.

Eleore

@Windsagio I have two categories for JNC series I follow - the ones I buy, and the ones I keep as prepub only.

Bookworm, Apothecary Diaries and Dahlia in Bloom are examples of the former. These are series I really enjoyed and will definitely read again.

The latter category mostly includes manga includes those books I either won't read again, or simply didn't like enough to justify the purchase. My funds are also limited, unfortunately... .

As for buying the Japanese versions, well, I don't do that very often, just with a couple of series as shipping can be expensive. Right now, the only ones I'm actively buying are manga (My Happy Marriage's special editions and Shoukoku no Altair, both of which get like one book per year) and the Honzuki junior bunko.

My Happy Marriage is also a strange example in that I'm getting the English novels but the Japanese manga... perhaps it's because the setting, but that one just feels like I have to read it in Japanese ahaha.