March 2023 Livestream!

myskaros

Tune in on Friday, March 3, 2023, at 4 PM PT / 7 PM ET (March 4 at 12 AM UTC) for an announcement session of new exciting light novels and manga that will be launching on J-Novel Club! Plus, we'll have Q&A at the end if there's some time! 😁 If you can't make it, you'll be able to watch the VOD for at least a couple days afterward, and recaps will be on our Twitter and here in this topic as well!

https://twitch.tv/jnovelclub

myskaros

New license announcements!

Other announcements:

Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest audiobook is in production!
Blade & Bastard volume 2 English release is coming in May!
The rental system will be live within minutes of this post! Anyone can rent expired parts using Coins for 72 hours. If you want to buy the book while a rental is active, the Coins spent on renting will count toward the cost of the premium ebook!

TheGrimLich

Ohoho...

Ingraman

@TheGrimLich said in March 2023 Livestream!:

Ohoho...

Your inner-ojousama coming out? :)

Kotenmaru

Yay, more licenses. Here's hoping for more diabetes inducing sweetness.

Lily Garden

We’re at T minus 6 hours…

Is there anything that you guys are really hoping for?

Geezer Weasalopes

@Lily-Garden said in March 2023 Livestream!:

We’re at T minus 6 hours…

Is there anything that you guys are really hoping for?

We want Lucia!

Lex

@Lily-Garden said in March 2023 Livestream!:

We’re at T minus 6 hours…

Is there anything that you guys are really hoping for?

Musume Janakute Mama ga Sukinano!? (same author as Slightly older girlfriend) and Rakudai.

FacelessOne

@Lily-Garden Love to see some more romcoms filled with sugary sweetness.

Lily Garden

@FacelessOne Yes! Definitely!

myskaros

Friendly reminder that the stream will be in about 2 hours from this message! Links in the first post!

Eva Yume

[SEES EARL AND FAIRY]

/SCREAMS SHAKING AND CRYING

OH MY GOD! I wished I had been there for the stream, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU JNOVEL CLUB! OH my god, 15 years.... 15 years I've dreamed of this moment. I'm so excited and so happy to see it be picked up. Instantly pre-ordered!!!!! This is my absolute favourite novel of all time and I'm just SO SO SO SO SO HAPPY to it being officially brought over for more people to discover and enjoy!

jpwong

For the people who want to see all the slides (it's just the same things listed in the second post of this thread)

spoiler

Shiny

@Eva-Yume said in March 2023 Livestream!:

[SEES EARL AND FAIRY]

/SCREAMS SHAKING AND CRYING

OH MY GOD! I wished I had been there for the stream, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU JNOVEL CLUB! OH my god, 15 years.... 15 years I've dreamed of this moment. I'm so excited and so happy to see it be picked up. Instantly pre-ordered!!!!! This is my absolute favourite novel of all time and I'm just SO SO SO SO SO HAPPY to it being officially brought over for more people to discover and enjoy!

Very happy for you. I got the impression from the stream that licensing decisions for older series are informed by how well other JNC licenses for older series did that were in the same genre, so the more people who read and buy Earl the better it will be for similar licenses.

geetop

I am curious if the subscription numbers help to decide what to license. I will not purchase many books so I am hoping that the stats from what people read via subscription (pre-publish, captures) also help in the model. My staying subscribed will depend on the value I get as a member. I suppose rentals will play a part in the equation as well.

Shiny

@geetop said in March 2023 Livestream!:

I am curious if the subscription numbers help to decide what to license.

The most likely time you'll get an answer to that kind of question would be at a future livestream when they do Q&A at the end. You could also try asking via Twitter.

endoftheline

@geetop At $4.95/mo, using an extremely contrived person who only reads 12ish parts per month (i.e., about a volume's worth of parts), that's around $1.69 cheaper than purchasing a premium novel with the 5% discount. I don't know how they track numbers, but the simplest is total revenue. Under that model, a premium sale would carry about 34% more weight than a subscription. People who read more per month would decrease the effective value a subscription adds to a series, similar reasoning can be made for people who read less.

In all likelihood, if subscriptions are used, they'd be used to estimate the size of the market. e.g., What percentage of members have at least opened up a part? What percentage of people who have opened the volume read at least half of it? What percentage of people who have opened the volume read more than 80% of the volume? How many sales did the volume before some cutoff date?

My guess is that while subscriptions are used, they probably don't make nearly as big an impact as sales. And if we're talking about niche licensing decisions, the rental system probably won't help with that either. Aside from its marketing perks (i.e., conversion to sales), its biggest standalone impact is likely going towards monetizing people who are interested in reading a series but don't care enough to own it... the size of that market's is not something I have the foggiest clue about.

admin

@endoftheline Part reading data we do sometimes analyze, and it's usually mostly proportional to ebook sales, but once you get down to the less popular series sometimes strange phenomena appear and you get some series that are popular to stream but don't sell as well, or vica verca.

It's interesting data but it's generally more complex to extrapolate to overall profit than normal ebook sales.

Microdynames

@admin

but once you get down to the less popular series sometimes strange phenomena appear

So you're saying LN popularity exhibits quantum mechanics properties

admin

@Microdynames nah more like statistical noise and small group demographic effects get amplified.