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Old 2009-10-12, 20:43   Link #841
durack
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The new cover looks like one of those "vampire soft porn" books that are littering the entire fantasy/sci-fi section at Borders / Barnes and Noble and are now starting to spill into the romance section as well.

This kind of reader will flip through the book and put it back, IMHO.

Wouldn't it made more sense to have it drawn generic western fantasy style?
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Old 2009-10-14, 00:47   Link #842
Vexx
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Quote:
Originally Posted by durack View Post
The new cover looks like one of those "vampire soft porn" books that are littering the entire fantasy/sci-fi section at Borders / Barnes and Noble and are now starting to spill into the romance section as well.

This kind of reader will flip through the book and put it back, IMHO.

Wouldn't it made more sense to have it drawn generic western fantasy style?
Yeah... something more akin to the sci-fi/fantasy section ... however I've started seeing those "photo vampire soft porn" type covers in there as well.

Bleh for fads.
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Old 2009-10-17, 05:45   Link #843
TCman
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It's just unbelievable that Yen Press has decided to change the cover of the Spice & Wolf cover into something that's quite misleading to attract more potential readers. I think the readers, who never knew what Spice & Wolf was, are much smarter than Yen Press thinks. Most reader do some research on the internet before buying, if the novel is good they will buy, the cover won't change that. So changing the cover to gain a bigger audience does not work in my opinion, it only piss off the dedicated fans who only want to buy a complete work in English translation including the genuine Japanese cover.

As someone has said the DVD cover also contains a naked Horo, but we are talking about the light novel; and who says the DVD cover is good to go, this DVD cover also seems to be a product from similar tactics that Yen Press is using now to lure more audience.

Another weird thing is that the original interior Japanese artworks are unchanged, so the entire book/novel is stripped from it's original cover and is replaced with a "more mature" cover which does not entirely match the interior artworks. For me this mis-match of the exterior and interior makes the novel already "incomplete". "Luckily" the original 'Japanese' cover is available for the dedicated fans, but for a price, since you will have to buy the december issue of the Yen Press Plus magazine which includes the cover.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yen Press
We hope you’re all as excited as we are to see SPICE AND WOLF hit shelves in December complete with all of the original interior illustrations, and we hope you’ll all help to make this unique and wonderful novel the runaway success it deserves to be!
source

I think it's more appropriate to hold/set up a poll at Yen Press' site to research which cover the whole audience prefer: the original Japanese cover or the new, more mature designed cover? Everyone can vote, including the dedicated fans, casual readers and all other potential buyers of the light novel. Also deciding which cover to include with the light novel by poll is more fair/democratic for everyone, Yen Press also can have a better view what everyone wants.

If Yen Press truly understands us, just do a poll at Yen Press's site, since it's good for everyone, good for Yen Press (maximum sell and its "estimation"), the dedicated fans (complete product) and all other readers!
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Old 2009-10-19, 17:08   Link #844
DreamerRa
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I disagree TCMan. I think there are a substantial number of individuals who don't do any research at all, and are just looking for a good book to read. I think if you weigh the number of hardcore fans who won't buy this book due to the cover vs. new readers that the cover attracts, I think the number is net positive. A larger audience results in more profit. At the end, that's all that matters to Yen Press, as they're a for-profit business.

Additionally, making the original cover purchasable is a calculated decision to make profit off the hardcore fans who despise the new cover. It's win-win for them.

Online polls would not work since only the existing, hardcore fans would even know to vote. (How would potential buyers of the light novel know to vote if they won't even know about Spice and Wolf until they run into it at the bookstore?)

I understand the frustration from longtime fans, but I'm glad that Yen Press is looking to expand the Spice and Wolf community. I only wish that the first novel sells incredibly well such that they decide to release the other novels at a faster pace than one every six months.
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Old 2009-10-20, 02:41   Link #845
kenshin-dono
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does anyone know a way to download the text from bak-tsuki's spice and wolf page?

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/in...Spice_%26_Wolf

id like to save the volumes to my HD for reading later, especialy volume 1 before it gets taken down when the novel comes out (if it does)

but i see no real way of doing that. No word or text doc version of it that i can see
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Old 2009-10-20, 10:41   Link #846
BashZeStampeedo
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I just saved each volume's page using Firefox (the "full text" links, as available). But I was lazy... if you use Firefox then add-ons like Scrapbook and DownThemAll could be of great help too (to edit away the portions of the page that are not interesting, or grab the full-size images a little more easily).

Some attempts have been made to make PDF or Flash "storybook" versions of at least the first volume. Personally, I prefer HTML. If others would like, I could help create a more stylized HTML page for easier offline viewing. Just PM me, but realize it might take me at least a couple of days.

That being said, I'm currently more interested in finding time to edit the first volume before it's officially released and B/T locks it from future edits.
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Old 2009-10-23, 01:38   Link #847
kenshin-dono
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tnx. tried the html save. I'm gonna try copying and pasting into word as well i think
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Old 2009-10-23, 18:10   Link #848
Riful
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TCman View Post
So changing the cover to gain a bigger audience does not work in my opinion
We will see. It is worth a try, because what we know for sure is that Light Novels with their manga-style covers do not sell at all, since they pretty much all got cancelled sadly. So the sells for Spice and Wolf cannot really be worse than that and maybe, just maybe Yen Press' idea will work out. I certainly hope so. And then I want them to get Kino's Journey going on as well ><
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Old 2009-10-29, 09:29   Link #849
DreamerRa
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Any chance there is a wonderful person that would give us detailed summaries and perhaps translated choice passages, similar to the Bakemonogatari and Shana light novel threads? I am absolutely in love with Horo and can't get enough Spice & Wolf. I wish we could convince Yen Press to release their novels faster!
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Old 2009-11-10, 13:09   Link #850
wandering-dreamer
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It appears that the December issue of Yen Press is out and a few posts down on this page show what the cover looks like, but apparently it's hard to get out of the magazine without ripping it.
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Old 2009-11-10, 18:27   Link #851
einhorn303
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Originally Posted by Riful View Post
We will see. It is worth a try, because what we know for sure is that Light Novels with their manga-style covers do not sell at all, since they pretty much all got cancelled sadly.
Then again, there are the counter-examples of:

- Haruhi
- everything printed by Dark Horse (Vampire Hunter D, Yoshitako Amano stuff, Blood+, Ah! My Goddess, etc etc)
- everything printed by Del Rey

The problem seems to be more with Seven Seas and Tokyopop than "light novels with original cover" in general.
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Old 2009-11-10, 22:22   Link #852
Full Metal Coast
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crap ive literally just started reading the novels on Baka-Tsuki. does anyone know for sure that they will be taken down?

also am loving this series at the moment i cant believe i havent started it sooner.
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Old 2009-11-11, 19:12   Link #853
Riful
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Quote:
Originally Posted by einhorn303 View Post
- Haruhi
ok, 1 point - which is why I said "pretty much all of them"

Quote:
- everything printed by Dark Horse (Vampire Hunter D, Yoshitako Amano stuff
You can hardly call Yoshitaka Amano's style "manga style". Imho his style doesn't look like what will make people go "eek, manga, eww", I wouldn't even call it manga at all. Plus, Vampire Hunter D is a real classic anime and his style is also famous because of Final Fantasy.

Quote:
Blood+, Ah! My Goddess
Ah My Goddess has only one volume, hasn't it? Hard to cancel that

Blood+ seems to be completed with 4 volumes, which is not all that much either and it seems that Dark Horse isn't planning to publish the second light novel series Blood+: Russian Rose, eventhough they announced it.


Quote:
- everything printed by Del Rey
which is? I'm not so familiar with which publisher publishes what, but I think they also have mostly 1 volume "series".

And I got Zaregoto from them and volume 2 was announced for this year, now it's for 2010 ... I only believe it's going to be published when I actually hold it in my hands xD
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Old 2009-11-12, 09:10   Link #854
FlareKnight
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Well we'll see how the cover page plan works out. Though I'm hardly optimistic about the whole thing. I mean if anyone is actually interested in the cover they will just open up see the art inside and put it back on the shelf. Who buys something based on a cover anyways. Your looking in the thing almost the entire time and then only see the spine when it's on the shelf. Probably hurts that I just don't like the cover but oh well.

This plan can only end in tears. Either it works and they keep on doing it or it fails and well it fails .
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Old 2009-11-17, 12:36   Link #855
mastakilla88
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I have a question: There are 12 LN of Spice and wolf... There are close to end? The journey they say have to last 6 month...
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Old 2009-11-17, 12:54   Link #856
TCman
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Well, just saw this several days ago:


courtesy of the anon who provides us this.

I don't know whether all covers are suffered from the wrong bending/folding, but at YenPress' site someone who's called Bweb confirmed that all covers are like that. It's quite unfair for the people who were still willing to buy the magazine to get the cover only. What is the meaning of this? Can someone else confirm that's really the truth?
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Old 2009-11-17, 13:24   Link #857
LKK
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TCman View Post
I don't know whether all covers are suffered from the wrong bending/folding, but at YenPress' site someone who's called Bweb confirmed that all covers are like that. It's quite unfair for the people who were still willing to buy the magazine to get the cover only. What is the meaning of this? Can someone else confirm that's really the truth?
Yes, all the covers are folded like that. Everyone who has reported on the cover has said so. My cover is folded like that too.
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Old 2009-11-17, 13:55   Link #858
TCman
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LKK View Post
Yes, all the covers are folded like that. Everyone who has reported on the cover has said so. My cover is folded like that too.
Thanks for the reply, LKK.
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Old 2009-11-18, 12:37   Link #859
GuidoHunter_Toki
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I'm assuming they folded it in awkward places to make it fit into the magazine right?
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Old 2009-11-18, 12:46   Link #860
LKK
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GuidoHunter_Toki View Post
I'm assuming they folded it in awkward places to make it fit into the magazine right?
Presumably. However, I've gotten dust jackets bound in Japanese manga mags that were folded so that the main picture wasn't creased. So I know it can be done. I guess that American printers aren't used to folding inserts like that though.
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