Yesterday we did a roundtable involving those who have been covering the growth of light novels in the West.
Today, we check in with the people publishing them.
Over the past two weeks I reached out to companies publishing light novels, and here’s the following who took part:
Sam Pinansky, President and Founder of J-Novel Club
Robert at One Peace Books
Charis Messier, Lead Translator and President of Cross Infinite World
Due to time constraints not every publisher could take part — the following 4 questions were sent over the past two weeks, and with AX closely approaching it just didn’t work out time wise. Similar to the article yesterday, everyone could go as long or as short as they wanted on the questions:
TheOASG: What are your thoughts on the state of light novels today as opposed to three years ago?
Sam Pinansky: It was exactly 3 years ago when I was deep into the middle of creating J-Novel Club…During the summer of 2016 I was simultaneously programming the website/apps, coming up with novel translation workflows, and most importantly, running around to a number of Japanese publishers having meeting after meeting pitching my new business model to publishers, trying to find ones willing to take a chance on a new company whose only track record was my personal reputation in the industry.
I was going through all this trouble because the way I saw it, the demand for light novel translations was growing far more quickly than the official publishing industry was responding to it. I was seeing a rise in fan translations and the beginning of aggregator sites for them which are more signs of unmet demand, and at the same time an increase in quantity and lowering of quality of these fan translations. These are two signs that were familiar to me as someone who was there at the advent of legal anime simulcasting.
It was no longer sufficient to have only the mega hits like Sword Art Online, or Overlord, or Danmachi be published: With more than 30% of anime being adaptations of light novels, someone needed to step up and start officially translating things sooner, faster, and digitally so you could at least approach the pace things came out in Japan. I was far from the only person to see this however: It was right about 3 years ago that Kadokawa announced their purchase of a majority of Yen Press, and they too saw the potential for an explosion of growth in the light novel market. So to summarize, 3 years ago is really the beginning of the period of growth we have seen in the market, where a number of important players started laying the groundwork for what was to come.
If we now fast forward to the present, we can see clearly that not only is J-Novel Club publishing about 10 volumes a month digitally (and 4-5 physically starting in the Fall), other companies like Yen Press, Seven Seas, and even Vertical are publishing more light novels than ever before. The demand curve is not really slowing down all that much in the digital sphere, so growth there I believe will continue, while in some aspects the corresponding growth in print is becoming a little oversaturated (I will take some of the blame for that); I think it will take slightly longer for the popularity to be absorbed into the print buyer’s market. Companies like Seven Seas are now doing many of their series “digital first”, matching our business model, and in recent news some long standing print-only holdouts are finally being released digitally like the Monogatari series and light novels from Shogakukan. Many anime this season (If It’s For My Daughter, I’d Even Defeat a Demon Lord), or in the future (Infinite Dendrogram, Ascendance of a Bookworm, Sorcerous Stabber Orphen) will have at least a couple of their light novels fully published and available before the anime even airs, which was basically non-existent up until the past few years, starting with In Another World With My Smartphone and then How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord. The light novel market and anime adaptations have long had a symbiotic relationship in Japan, and it’s only now that companies in the US are producing things at the pace which will enable something similar in the West. It’s likely that future anime adaptation decisions may even be influenced by the international success of a light novel, completing the circle.
All in all, I’m proud of the role J-Novel Club has played in pushing this particular medium to a more prominent role in the ecosystem, and I think it will play a large part in the overall growth and prosperity of Japanese media’s international success into the future.
Robert: I don’t see a huge difference. But, I’m really more interested in new releases in Japan, rather than how light novels are doing in the US. So it’s hard for me to say. But, over time, it does seem as though the light novel is starting to be another part of the whole manga/Japanese pop-culture entertainment field in the US, rather than just an anomaly.
Charis Messier: There seems to be a much wider acceptance of light novels as a category with both retailers and readers. In the past, the keyword “light novel” would pull up a lot of random, unrelated works, but if you type it into a retailer or Google now, you get mostly Japanese light novels! Some retailers such as Google Play, iBooks, and Amazon have gone out of their way to create light novel exclusive categories to make them easier for readers to find. This is a huge step forward for the industry! You can also really tell how far light novels have come in popularity with more physical bookstores now giving them their own shelf space instead of just lumping them in with graphic novels!
Being as frank as you can be, what’s been the biggest surprise to you regarding LNs over the past couple years?
Sam: For me as a publisher, the biggest surprise is actually how warmly a company like mine was welcomed into the space by the readers, even the ones used to fan translation. When we license something, especially if it is being fan translated, I was expecting bitter reactions from fan translation readers when groups would stop because of licensing, or groups defiantly continuing on despite the official license…But for the most part, rather than bitter anger, fans of these novels are happy to be getting a proper translation released at a consistent pace, and pretty willing to pay a reasonable price for them, too! It’s important to me to try and convert people who are used to reading fan translations to becoming consumers of official releases, and that process has really been far easier than I had expected. It turns out all you really need to do is release quality work, on time, consistently, and charge a fair price! Who knew? My experience from when the first official anime simulcasts happened seems like quite a world of difference.
Robert: The firm hold the “isekai” sub-genre seems to be establishing is pretty surprising. It’s not a new genre that just popped up, but it’s not going away either. And, it seems to be establishing itself as a dominant sub-genre within the light novel field.
Charis: On the English publishing side of things, one of the biggest surprises has been the monumental success of some of our non-isekai light novels in a market that’s constantly craving isekai stories!
On the Japanese publishing side, we were shocked to find out a lot of Japanese publishers will actually have shoujo authors rewrite their shoujo stories for a shounen audience. They ask for some pretty drastic changes!
What do you believe makes a “great LN experience” from a company’s perspective?
Sam: My guiding light for what I think makes a light novel a success is whether reading it is…fun! It’s really that simple. Of course, different people have fun reading books in different ways, but I think there’s no reason to overthink it. Characters that make you laugh, or make you smile…or make you groan…Tense situations or just ridiculous plot twists; all those things can be fun and our books have a wide selection and keep you coming back. You can talk about world building, or character progression or those kinds of things, but in reality what I think the true light novel experience is, is that after picking up a book and reading for half an hour, whether you feel in a better mood than you did when you started.
Robert: A good localization. If the reading experience feels like an adaptation from Japanese, it hasn’t been properly localized. This, of course, is very difficult because of the constant demand for an “authentic” experience too. But, if you are reading in English, then you should be reading a translation adapted to that language to produce a “great LN experience.”
Charis: A great light novel experience is one that draws the reader into a unique story they can’t find in mainstream novels. Cross Infinite World especially focuses on bringing over the more unique light novel genres!
Finally, what can you say is next for the company moving forward?
Sam: J-Novel Club is going to be doing a lot of internal things over the next year. Hiring more staff, expanding our office, revamping our website/apps, and starting some actual marketing activities. We’ve established already that we know how to localize novels, manga, and print and distribute them as well. What’s most important now for me is to transform the business into something more than “Sam and his merry band of helpers”, and we’re well on our well already down that path. Although the changes won’t be all that obvious to the consumer (aside from the website revamp), they should set up the company for the long haul.
Robert: We aren’t so concerned with LNs per se, but on new releases in Japan overall, whether they be LNs or not. So, we’ll be moving forward on licensing new series, but they may or may not be LNs. It really just depends on the particular series being considered.
Charis: As you might already know from our recent announcement on June 21st, entering the print market is a huge step we are taking moving forward! We are starting with eight of our titles, but we are definitely hoping to make print happen for other fan favorites like Obsessions of an Otome Gamer!
We have also been able to license a lot of exciting new titles into 2020, including a light novel series connected to a big name visual novel! So keep your eyes peeled for announcements from Cross Infinite World!