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NEWS: Kodansha: Amazon Japan's Kindle Subscription Service Removes Over 1,000 Titles




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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3426
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 7:24 am Reply with quote
Perhaps Kodansha should consider their own service, alone or together with other publishers, they certainly have the size. Such a rapid removal/rotation of titles is poison to any subscription service...

Not that it really matters to us, their Kindle offerings on Amazon Japan have been and are exclusive to Japan.
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Jonny Mendes



Joined: 17 Oct 2014
Posts: 997
Location: Europe
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 8:53 am Reply with quote
Blanchimont wrote:
Perhaps Kodansha should consider their own service, alone or together with other publishers, they certainly have the size. Such a rapid removal/rotation of titles is poison to any subscription service...

Not that it really matters to us, their Kindle offerings on Amazon Japan have been and are exclusive to Japan.


I was thinking the same. Also if the Japanese publishers get that kind of service with at least some of the titles in English i would consider subscribe it.
It can serve allot of people outside Japan that are interested in that titles but are unable to read them because many of them are not licensed in the west.
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ultimatemegax



Joined: 26 Jan 2010
Posts: 412
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 9:46 am Reply with quote
Jonny Mendes wrote:
Blanchimont wrote:
Perhaps Kodansha should consider their own service, alone or together with other publishers, they certainly have the size. Such a rapid removal/rotation of titles is poison to any subscription service...

Not that it really matters to us, their Kindle offerings on Amazon Japan have been and are exclusive to Japan.


I was thinking the same. Also if the Japanese publishers get that kind of service with at least some of the titles in English i would consider subscribe it.
It can serve allot of people outside Japan that are interested in that titles but are unable to read them because many of them are not licensed in the west.

Man, if only such a program has existed since 2010 and has added publishers/features like you asked. That would be great, wouldn't it?

http://bookwalker.jp/

BookWalker sells titles in both Japanese/English. They're constantly updating with new Yen Press (and other Eng publishers like Dark Horse and Seven Seas) titles. JP side has all of the Kadokawa labels, Kodansha, Ichijinsha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, Hounbunsha, and other JP publishers you've likely never heard of.

Bookwalker advertises at anime cons, sends news/PR to ANN, and yet people want something just like it because they ignore it.
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lem



Joined: 29 Sep 2007
Posts: 734
Location: Land of trying to figure sht out
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 10:40 am Reply with quote
^Thank You! ultimatemegax

*off to register*
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relentlessflame



Joined: 14 Dec 2004
Posts: 188
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 11:33 am Reply with quote
ultimatemegax wrote:
Man, if only such a program has existed since 2010 and has added publishers/features like you asked. That would be great, wouldn't it?

Does Bookwalker actually offer a subscription service akin to the Kindle Subscription service being discussed in the article? I mean, yes, they're a store, and they have a book club sort of service where you can subscribe and get purchase discounts on a monthly basis, but I don't think they offer the sort of "all-you-can-eat" (of what is available) model of Kindle's subscription service.

The issue of this article isn't that the items are being removed from the Kindle store, but removed from the subscription service. The problem, such that it is, is that Amazon can remove titles from the subscription service at any time if they get too popular to limit the amount of revenue they have to pay to any publisher. It's a bit different than if a subscription service removes titles because the licensing arrangement is up. The problem here is that it's a bit of a bait-and-switch from a customer's point of view, where all the popular titles are there at the start to entice people to subscribe, but then removed shortly thereafter under the guise of "regular rotation." Absent an explanation, customers might blame Kodansha for pulling the license, but I think that's why they're clarifying that it's Amazon's arbitrary decision to reduce/limit pay-outs. It suggests that the business proposition wasn't very solid or was overly ambitious to begin with.

(The Kindle subscription service in the U.S. is similarly limited in terms of offerings (a few big names, mostly middling works), though seeing this article, it's probably for a similar reason. It certainly doesn't give anywhere near full access to the Kindle store selection.)
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
Posts: 7163
Location: Another Kingdom
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 12:14 pm Reply with quote
ultimatemegax wrote:

Man, if only such a program has existed since 2010 and has added publishers/features like you asked. That would be great, wouldn't it?

http://bookwalker.jp/

BookWalker sells titles in both Japanese/English. They're constantly updating with new Yen Press (and other Eng publishers like Dark Horse and Seven Seas) titles. JP side has all of the Kadokawa labels, Kodansha, Ichijinsha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, Hounbunsha, and other JP publishers you've likely never heard of.

Bookwalker advertises at anime cons, sends news/PR to ANN, and yet people want something just like it because they ignore it.


I have never heard of Bookwalker until now. They must not advertise at the conventions I go to.

relentlessflame wrote:
The issue of this article isn't that the items are being removed from the Kindle store, but removed from the subscription service. The problem, such that it is, is that Amazon can remove titles from the subscription service at any time if they get too popular to limit the amount of revenue they have to pay to any publisher. It's a bit different than if a subscription service removes titles because the licensing arrangement is up. The problem here is that it's a bit of a bait-and-switch from a customer's point of view, where all the popular titles are there at the start to entice people to subscribe, but then removed shortly thereafter under the guise of "regular rotation." Absent an explanation, customers might blame Kodansha for pulling the license, but I think that's why they're clarifying that it's Amazon's arbitrary decision to reduce/limit pay-outs. It suggests that the business proposition wasn't very solid or was overly ambitious to begin with.


Another thing is that, if I'm reading the article correctly, the titles were removed without informing anyone at Kodansha first. That kind of move is not cool and is bad business. It doesn't let Kodansha at least prepare for their removal. (I don't know if publishers in the west are informed about their removal though; maybe it's commonplace and western publishers are used to it.)
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Jonny Mendes



Joined: 17 Oct 2014
Posts: 997
Location: Europe
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 12:54 pm Reply with quote
ultimatemegax wrote:
Jonny Mendes wrote:
Blanchimont wrote:
Perhaps Kodansha should consider their own service, alone or together with other publishers, they certainly have the size. Such a rapid removal/rotation of titles is poison to any subscription service...

Not that it really matters to us, their Kindle offerings on Amazon Japan have been and are exclusive to Japan.


I was thinking the same. Also if the Japanese publishers get that kind of service with at least some of the titles in English i would consider subscribe it.
It can serve allot of people outside Japan that are interested in that titles but are unable to read them because many of them are not licensed in the west.

Man, if only such a program has existed since 2010 and has added publishers/features like you asked. That would be great, wouldn't it?

http://bookwalker.jp/

BookWalker sells titles in both Japanese/English. They're constantly updating with new Yen Press (and other Eng publishers like Dark Horse and Seven Seas) titles. JP side has all of the Kadokawa labels, Kodansha, Ichijinsha, Shueisha, Shogakukan, Hounbunsha, and other JP publishers you've likely never heard of.

Bookwalker advertises at anime cons, sends news/PR to ANN, and yet people want something just like it because they ignore it.


Cool!!! Lets go register.
Thank you.

Never heard before because there are very few conventions on my country and i don't know if Bookwalker advertises in them before.

Its still very small, but at least is another place to look for.
I hope there are more support from western fans so they bring more titles.
For example i think all their LNs are the ones licensed to western companies like Yen Press.

What i as talking about is the Japanese publishers release LN's themselves in English without need to pass through license to another western company. There are so many good LN and so few are in English. And the waiting time to them catch up to the latest volume is too long.
Its almost impossible see Japanese publishers release those titles directly in English but i can always dream.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 2046
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 3:45 pm Reply with quote
ultimatemegax wrote:
Bookwalker advertises at anime cons, sends news/PR to ANN, and yet people want something just like it because they ignore it.

I've been to many anime cons, and follow ANN news pretty closely and like others I have NEVER heard of BookWalker. Just because they haven't been successful bringing themselves to the attention of their market doesn't mean all their potential customers are avoiding it. Marketing is very DIFFICULT. Heck, I've sent PRs to ANN for conventions that never see the front page for some reason. I have no idea what is needed to get past the gatekeepers and get in front of more eyeballs like "another idol singer retires so she can get married".

EDIT: And now I just need Yen Press to friggin put out eBook versions of the Accel World LNs!! (seriously, I have bought every single LN in the series, so this isn't about avoiding payment or anything, I just really want eBook versions of the series, either to save myself shelf space, or else just to have "on the go", not sure if I'll keep buying the physical copies or not if I can get eBooks)
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Kadmos1



Joined: 08 May 2014
Posts: 13540
Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP
PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2016 2:01 am Reply with quote
A 7/4/16 Revenues & Profits article called "Amazon Revenues and Profits Analysis 2015" said that Amazon had $107 billion in net sales last year. Of that, $8.5 billion was from Japan. It's possible Amazon Japan was doing the e-commerce equivalent of Hollywood Accounting.
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