Sol Press Discussion Thread
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@whyohwhy1 Damn it’s still down? I can’t help but feel that they’ll be out of business before the years end
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end of the year? you're over-optimistic almost to the point of delusion
their last tweet was 08/11 - about 2 weeks ago, nothing on facebook for almost a year- no press releases, no news...now I know that social media isn't how every company markets themselves, but for a digital media company NOT to have any updates on platforms where they actually have a presence, and a website down for weeks, and with a history of not doing (pretty much anything) well/expediently...this is the 'writing on the wall' - I'm speculating that they are already bankrupt and in reorganization and or renegotiation for managing debt (licenses cost money, if you don't finish projects you can't sell, you can't pay back your investors who put up the money to acquire the licenses etc...)
the next news item/press release will be blowing sunshine about 'we're back on our feet- everything is fine, pay no attention to the man behing the curtain'
the one after that - will be 'thanks to all our patrons/fans, it was a good run but we were forced to file chapter 11 or 13...'
the one after that will be (maybe) a link to who bought the corpse(edit to add - the press releases might not actually happen - another likely scenario is just a flurry of news items from other publishers announcing the licenses they 'rescued'- and Sol is never heard from again)
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God some licence rescues would be a dream... But most likely the series they carry will be dead in the water if/when Sol implodes
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@shipteaser said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
God some licence rescues would be a dream... But most likely the series they carry will be dead in the water if/when Sol implodes
I do not know the details of the agreements - but I suspect the most likely case would be that terms in the agreements between Sol and the respective publishers would specify that licenses would revert back to original Japanese publishers (who can then strike a deal with some other translation house) - in the case that Sol goes belly up
If that isn't the case- they are an asset that can sold to settle debts under chapter 11/13in either case - it demonstrates why licenses are often optioned 1 volume at a time - could you imagine the nightmare of continuing a series if the entire IP was tied up in probate (vs a single volume)
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As selfish as it sounds, it is probably the only way Rakudai (insert your own series of choice) will escape.
Did not even get the promised paperback version to put next to the Japanese RAWS on my shelves, which made me sad. -
Hopefully JNC rescues 80,000 Gold and Rakudai.
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@village-idiot that's the dream as currently we have more chance of seeing the numerous multi~thousand chapter Chinese epics that are translated at 1 chapter per week conclude before we see the end of the Sol Press licences...
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@shipteaser said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
@village-idiot that's the dream as currently we have more chance of seeing the numerous multi~thousand chapter Chinese epics that are translated at 1 chapter per week conclude before we see the end of the Sol Press licences...
nah, I think it likely we'll see the end of Sol Press itself soon - assuming some other translation/publication house wants 80K (or anything else for that matter- they'd likely have to start translations from scratch) I suspect the titles will be back on the market/out of probate in a year or two-- that's like 10x faster than Sol was publishing works
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@jon-mitchell any new publishers can say that the books will come out in 6 month intervals and it'll still be faster.
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@village-idiot said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
@jon-mitchell any new publishers can say that the books will come out in 6 month intervals and it'll still be faster.
Sol Press: Making the Tentai release schedule look good.
It's been 3 weeks of the website being down, they must have lost their technical staff (who left with the passwords to everything) and/or have run out of money.
Along with 80,000 Gold I'd hope for JNC to also snag Let This Grieving Soul Retire. I have no idea whether it's good, but I liked Ringer by the same author.
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@harmlessdave
yea Tentai is not fast, I'm not too surprised. They are HQ in Spain, a small operation, and the schedule shows them on hiatus in July/August (when many folks in Europe take their vacations) but at least they post a schedule and pretty much have stuck to it. Sol ONTOH...well, you know.I believe when Sol finishes its death rattles, it'll still be months before titles are even available to be rescued
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@jon-mitchell said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
@harmlessdave
yea Tentai is not fast, I'm not too surprised. They are HQ in Spain, a small operation, and the schedule shows them on hiatus in July/August (when many folks in Europe take their vacations) but at least they post a schedule and pretty much have stuck to it. Sol ONTOH...well, you know.I believe when Sol finishes its death rattles, it'll still be months before titles are even available to be rescued
I've only had positive experience with Tentai. Yes, they're small, but honestly I don't think I've heard anything overtly negative about them, and they've been operational for quite some time now. Compare that to Sol Press...
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@harmlessdave said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
It's been 3 weeks of the website being down, they must have lost their technical staff (who left with the passwords to everything) and/or have run out of money.
It's more entertaining to assume they moved their entire webteam to the translation department to help work on the delays.
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@korppi said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
@jon-mitchell said in Sol Press Discussion Thread:
@harmlessdave
yea Tentai is not fast, I'm not too surprised. They are HQ in Spain, a small operation, and the schedule shows them on hiatus in July/August (when many folks in Europe take their vacations) but at least they post a schedule and pretty much have stuck to it. Sol ONTOH...well, you know.I believe when Sol finishes its death rattles, it'll still be months before titles are even available to be rescued
I've only had positive experience with Tentai. Yes, they're small, but honestly I don't think I've heard anything overtly negative about them, and they've been operational for quite some time now. Compare that to Sol Press...
my point exactly
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@korppi I'm the opposite, I've only had negative experiences with Tentai. The first book that I ordered from them took almost 4 months for it to be delivered.
The second wasn't so bad, only 1.5 months.
But then the only series I'm really interested in that they have, had it's first volume released in February and the next volume isn't due till December. A ten month gap between is almost getting to Sol Press levels.For me, the only difference between Tentai and Sol Press is that Tentai eventually got me the books I ordered, where as the Rakudai books that I ordered got cancelled.
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@timmaaah
they publish a release schedule (and for the most part) stick to it, or announce if there is a delay and update the schedule...Sol has had titles in seemingly perpetual limbo FOR.YEARS. Tentai is slow - they publish at a snail's pace compared to JNC...but SOL by comparison to Tentai is a deceitful, dishonest, snail going the wrong way on a treadmill. They get none of my dollars (I've purchased several Tentai volumes) I HOPE they are out of business (so that titles can be rescued) good riddance -
a week later - Tentai has updates (I'm told)on Discord, Twitter and their own site...and Sol website still down, nothing on Twitter since Aug 11, nothing on Facebook for a year (Discord? I don't use it so I don't know) - but still listed on Kindle store so I guess still in business(?)---ok I'm done beating this dead(?) horse
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@jon-mitchell - Their Discord is still up for now. Tsmalls is just a moderator not staff I think.
Tsmalls — 08/09/2021
Shouldn’t be more than a few days now hopefullyTsmalls — 08/20/2021
There’s multiple of us trying to get to the bottom of this stuff
Also xev is aliveMost recent response, to "Any news on the site situation?"
Tsmalls — 08/28/2021
nothing that im told yet -
idk - i'm shocked any business can be run like this , I would have expected them to do more update on twitter/ discord as honestly i think sol press slow release rate / poor marketing will hurt sale of there next round of light novel releases ( most likely around December -i hope at least)
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@whyohwhy1 - not even the staff (translators & editors?) and moderator on Discord seem to know what's going on.
Either management isn't bothering to even tell their own staff what's wrong, or they have but the news is something like: we're shutting down but stay quiet about it so we can get a last bit of sales from Amazon, etc.
Even if they lost all the code for their site, as long as they had the login for the domain registry they should've been able to set up a placeholder website in an hour or two. Even without that login, the owner of the domain should be able to contact the registry and get a new login in a day or two. It's been almost a month now.
