[IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025
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So as not to momentarily confuse people…
@Rahul-Balaggan said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
Hello,
I am going to stop the criticism aimed at J-Novel Club.
Give what you said below, I assume you meant to put a “not” in that sentence above? (I am not going to stop […])
What I am going to stop is attacks on fellow users. Please keep any comments aimed at the company, not each other.
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@Jon-Mitchell said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
We all know the 'cost of business' is continuing to go up, professional translators and editors need to be paid, no one wants MTL/ChatGPT based translations/localizations of LNs, licenses cost more$, websites cost more$, corporate overlords have demands-
I totally understand all of that, for the new books. It aggravates me to no end that they increase the price for old books too. The cost of "printing" a new copy of an ebook is practically zero. It can be argued that our stack of coins doesn't lose value if the old books' price stays the same. But no, they raise the price of all books, with zero notice on their own website. Even if you somehow caught the YouTube stream, it is only a week notice. It should've been at least a month.
I think I've wait long enough for them to come up with something better than "Too bad you have to suffer from our mistake. Pinky promise we'll do better next time." I used to actively trying to find a series to enjoy from here. Not anymore. They broke my trust. I'll do my best to spend as little as possible from now on. I'm just one customer so they probably won't care (and I still have a lot of coins left), but that's the only thing I can do.
PS. This doesn't apply to me (I only buy epubs), but some of you may want to check your local laws. Microsoft recently annouced that they will increase the price of Xbox Game Pass subscription, but some countries will not be effected for another month or two due to their customer protection laws require sufficient advance notice. No idea how much of that apply here.
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I don't know the sources of all the costs in this particular business- I do have some knowledge about how corporate sales/ hosting/ licensing work - I've been in that biz for decades.
it is a misconception that a ebook (or any software license ) does not have a cost or that it isn't subject to inflation. Systems must be maintained to keep track of licenses, ensure royalties are paid, to host the websites that do e-commerce and all the back office things that 'keep the lights on' to run a business, 'sunk' costs have to be recouped (acquisition costs, licensing costs, legal fees, marketing, etc.- and JNC might sink cost in a number of titles that they don't actually ever acquire - they get outbid or whatever) -sure the incremental cost of the asset being resold for transaction number 10,001 vs number 9,999 may be minimal (pennies even) but if you take the example of a license of Microsoft Windows 11, the first license sold had a 'cost" to Microsoft of many millions of dollars (maybe a billion) and they sold it for $79 to some computer manufacturer to be preinstalled on a pc. Did Microsoft lose money?
I know I'm being longwinded, and I'm not here to be a spokesperson to defend JNC - but if were are going to be critical - let us be critical of things that are real:
- The communication was bungled. members feel blindsided
- folks on annual memberships, and the folks holding on to banks of coins feel they got screwed
- folks that saw catchups as a 'value add' that now have to pay to get that back feel they got screwed
No one is happy when prices go up- I would prefer that my coins were more like US postage "forever stamps' once bought 1 stamp = 1 first class letter, the price might go up in the future, but the stamps I already own don't lose value - but they are not and we knew they weren't - when JNC moved from 1 credit = 1 book to 699 coins = 1 book, we knew that was to allow for price changes later. some books could go 'on sale' and that meant the prices of others could go up, and that also allowed for rentals and maybe in the future other uses for coins (audio books? physical books? trade to other Kadokawa marketplaces? games? media tie-ins?)
Now, what will JNC members do? for me - I'm salty that my coins have less value but I was holding on, waiting for the next sale anyway (Black Friday?) and I feel the most value in the membership is in the pre-pubs not in the catchups so my pain will come when I need to renew my annual membership and I have to do the math and decide if it is worth it for me to stay a premium member of drop to a 'regular' member, if the juice is worth the squeeze....
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@Zarabada-0h92w38 When I looked at this the other day it essentially said you can cancel but if you're on a yearly subscription your cancellation becomes effective at the end of your subscription term. No refund in other words. All I want to do is upgrade to the highest tier and I don't see a way to do that. I emailed support 5 days ago no response. My subscription renewed as yearly in July.
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Hi,
I am looking at the support and contact email inboxes right now. I see 1 outstanding email that has not been replied to, but that is not related to this.
I also checked the spam folder. Nothing in there,
Could you send your email one more time?
contact@j-novel.club
support@j-novel.clubThank you
Also - you can upgrade your membership and a prorated amount of what is left on your membership will be applied toward the upgrade fee. You do not pay for the entire membership fee.
Before you compete the transaction, it shows you a breakdown of what the charge sand proration are.
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@Rahul-Balaggan said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
contact@j-novel.club
The process of upgrading was not really clear from the form when I looked at it the other day. But it is as you said. It shows up AFTER you submit. Process was completed. Thank you for the clarification.
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I'm disappointed that the premium membership doesn't include reader's club as a baseline. Having that as an addition isn't "Premium" at all.
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Personally, I would have thought a formal email being sent out to the email list of customers subscribed would have been better and more transparent.
I unsubscribed from the newsletter years ago as many of the topics were irrelevant to me at that time. And I have moved away from social media, though my business accounts are subscribed to J Novel club, but did not pop up on notifications.
My only gripe was that I resubscribed to premium on my renewal 2 weeks before this change came about, and had no idea it was coming, which means I have ended up with a slightly subpar product.
Just means I need to think about my wants and needs in 11 months time.
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One thing I'm glad about is that I spent my coins the minute I got them because I knew a predatory change like this would someday happen that would devalue the worth of coins "Saved". My condolences to the people who were bamboozled.
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So can the premium club membership not read manga prepubs? I keep getting errors when trying and if thats the case this is messed up. I didn't mind the the slight price increase if it meant I could keep the features I already enjoyed but raising the price and cutting services is just aggressively anti consumer.
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Hello,
Club membership (premium and not) allows you to read any pre-pub that has not expired. LN and Manga.
Could you let us know which manga you are not able to access?
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I simply sent an email to j-novel and it didnt take long to receive a receipt with my money return for unused time left. I agree that one week notice is short time for such major change.
I decided to drop out because premium membersership dosnt have anything making it premium for an old account. I honestly dont know what i get for it with the changes. Cant buy a book each month, less reduction for coin purchase and no catch up. And like some, catch up was one of the major reason for me. Only spent my coins recently and with this news.
Should have kept the catch up or just raised the price. I guess company economy isnt well since it seemed to be a rushed decision with the dollar degradation and all that is happening in the states.
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@Neshura-0 said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
@Phabiohost said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
What the hell guys? Why did you neuter the plan with functionally 0 notice and without a single benefit? Why did our legacy subs still get neutered too? We lose 5% of our discount, 15% of our current wallet, and catch-up and are told to spend more money for literally less than what we could buy directly with the difference. It's laughably bad how this was handled.
Not sure what exactly you mean here but at least the way I see it the premium subs still have their value if you assume the coins from Premium will be bought anyway:
Club vs. Premium Club:
Club + 799 Coins: 4.95$ + 7.99$ = 12.94$
Premium Club (which also has a 10% discount): 11.95$Price Difference Club compared to Premium Club: 0.99$ / 7.9% more expensive
Readers Club vs. Premium Readers Club:
Readers Club + 799 Coins: 7.95$ + 7.99$ * 0.95 = 15.54$
Premium Readers Club (with an 10% additional discount over Readers Club): 14.95$Price Difference Readers Club compared to Premium Readers Club: 0.59$ / 3.9% more expensive
These differences arguably aren't much but a 4%/8% saving isn't exactly no value either. On top every coin purchase over the 799 coins included anyway makes the Premium tiers more beneficial due to the discounts.
On the other hand I agree about the lack of notice, something like that should not happen and imo some form of compensation to those affected would go a long way in repairing trust.
I'm referring to premium members. We lost 5% of our discount, and effective 15% of our wallet, and catch-up. We could buy the new club premium for $12 a year more but as has been pointed out we could get more coins by just spending the 12 dollars with our discount.
In other words the new club premium isn't worth it for many of us that are already premium. Especially since the damage to our wallets is already done with the price increase of books.
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ok I've decided to try and be a glass half full person for a minute (I know it's always 'all full'; 1/2 with water 1/2 with air, nature abhors a vacuum - or always awful because I'm a pessimist who likes puns...)
I went and took a look at an ancient thread from 2019
"How do You Personally Use Your Membership?"
there I commented that I was a member since 2017, and followed about a dozen series, and thought the club was good value. If I recall correctly, at any one time there were maybe 15 or 20 titles active at any one time, usually there was a 'break of 2 weeks between volumes. So when I took the train to work, there was usually just enough to keep me occupied : I followed 8 or 9 series on pre-pub (per WEEK) at any one time (about 1/2 of what was available) active in the forums, maybe a manga - I figure what I read in prepubs (# of pages) per month was more than an e-book, plus I got a credit to buy an e-book, and the cost of membership was about the cost of 2 books - so a good deal
This was two years before Kadokawa purchased JNC, and now the number of titles active in pre-pub is more like 10 or 15 a DAY plus half a dozen manga a DAY - literally more than I have time to consume - there are close to 500 series translated (LN and Manga) I am getting far more 'bang for my buck' than I used to. This price increase is the first change since July 2021 - over 4 years - and this change will cost me an additional $1 a month for annual membership (when I renew in May)
Going forward, am I getting more for my extra dollar, compared to September 2025? No, I'm loosing access to catchups. Am I getting more than I did compared to when they introduced 'premium' memberships (2021) ? Far more (in my opinion) the sheer volume of pre-pubs(and number of quality series) has at least doubled since then , the AP is better, the website is better.
so there you go, I posted a bunch being salty and a downer and critical of JNC - here's me trying to see the bright side - there is no silver lining, but maybe a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down?
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@Rahul-Balaggan said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
Hello,
Club membership (premium and not) allows you to read any pre-pub that has not expired. LN and Manga.
Could you let us know which manga you are not able to access?
I very briefly experienced an issue with today's release of sweet reincarnation when trying to access it from the calendar, however refreshing the calendar resolved the issue, I am not sure if this is related to trh5001's issue.
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@Jon-Mitchell said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
I don't know the sources of all the costs in this particular business- I do have some knowledge about how corporate sales/ hosting/ licensing work - I've been in that biz for decades.
it is a misconception that a ebook (or any software license ) does not have a cost or that it isn't subject to inflation. Systems must be maintained to keep track of licenses, ensure royalties are paid, to host the websites that do e-commerce and all the back office things that 'keep the lights on' to run a business, 'sunk' costs have to be recouped (acquisition costs, licensing costs, legal fees, marketing, etc.- and JNC might sink cost in a number of titles that they don't actually ever acquire - they get outbid or whatever) -sure the incremental cost of the asset being resold for transaction number 10,001 vs number 9,999 may be minimal (pennies even) but if you take the example of a license of Microsoft Windows 11, the first license sold had a 'cost" to Microsoft of many millions of dollars (maybe a billion) and they sold it for $79 to some computer manufacturer to be preinstalled on a pc. Did Microsoft lose money?
I am even less of an expert than you are for sure, but please allow me to disagree. The point you made about Windows license is typically used in context of piracy--it takes nothing to make a copy; therefore piracy isn't stealing. Of course, none of us are arguing about piracy here. But I don't believe using that (counter-)argument to raise the price of released product is justified either.
To use your Windows example, you don't see MS raise the price of old Windows versions. They will eventually stop supporting the previous version so you must buy a new or upgraded license. Video games are another example. The price of new games has been steadily rising, but no one goes back and raises the price of their released games. I believe music and movies are the same. All the fixed costs should be covered by the price set at the time of release. The variable costs, as we both agree, are very minimal, so I don't see inflation as a valid reason to raise the price of an already-released digital product. In fact, I don't think any ebook publisher does this either. That's the whole reason textbook publishers keep coming up with new "editions" to sell new copies, potentially with a higher price tag.
My point is, I believe I am critical of the thing that is very much real. Raising price sucks, but I won't even blink at that if it's for new books going forward. Retroactively increases the price of already-released ones though? I have a problem with that.
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So prices increased, and the "benefits" we get out of it is...removal and downgrade of longstanding features? Excellent. This seems like a fantastic deal all around, and will surely be well received and perform accordingly.
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@hyper
perhaps I am not communicating my point clearly- the cost of an ebook (or any piece of software or digital media) is not just the incremental cost of the version of the product you are purchasing at that point in time (windows 11 or whatever) but includes a portion of the operational cost of the entire enterprise that continues to make that 'thing' work. A portion goes towards to ongoing expense of keeping the company functioning - for software - that means security patches, support, development etc. for an ebook (I'm speculating) revisions, acquiring the next title, producing more content, web site hosting, hosting a forum, ecommerce etc- if THOSE COSTS GO UP THE COST OF EVERY EBOOK WILL GO UP regardless of what you sold them for several years ago -once you create/license an eBook as a publisher - it isn't free - you still have costs and overhead on every transaction in addition to royalties - and you need to keep YOUR BUSINESS AFLOAT or volume 1 of whatever ongoing series isn't going to have any value at all if you can't keep the pipeline pumping out volumes 2 3 and 4 etc.BUT YOU ARE CORRECT that back catalog titles exist, and a business (JNC) could use content that were prepubs (vs premium ebooks)and not invest resources into revising/editing anymore...series that are 'complete' - and don't have a pipeline, I bet JNC can negotiate bargain rates on those rights ...(not zero, and maybe not as little as they used to be) those are essentially paid for and JNC figured out just how much $$ they need to maintain those properties and derive some benefit from them...they created the READERS' LIBRARY MEMBERSHIP for that purpose
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So catchups are gone and I've either lost track or finished most of what I wanted to read... it's been an honor, I guess. Still got 10 more months still running, which feels like a waste if I don't find titles worth latching onto
It's hard to bother with the subscription service which should be partially helping out the authors and distributors when a consistent pool of books I used to have read regularly are just not there anymore. I already paid for my subscription, and paying more to get it back is just bad service; I already paid for the package, and now I am given a portion of it gone
I'll admit that I am not one to avidly catch up to things, but it was one of the last straws... I see that I would not be alone for that, either. I guess I'll have to look... elsewhere, should I want to read after my time ends.
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@Neshura-0 said in [IMPORTANT UPDATE] New Subscription Tiers + Readers Library Now Live as of October 3, 2025:
Imo the price hikes are fine in isolation, it's objectively still a good deal (the extra coins each month alone making it "cheaper" than the regular subscription tiers if you are someone who would have bought those coins anyway) but the lack of proper notice ahead of time really doesn't sit right with me at all and is something I will not excuse a second time.
The price hike was $120 -> $132 for Premium, which given that they have not changed prices in years, I have no issue with this.
What I do have issue with is that they removed functionality from existing Legacy Premium users, with the loss of Monthly Catchups.
To add to the insult, the replacement for Monthly Catchup, Readers Library, was rolled into a higher tier.
