Index Novel Sales Figures and Discussion

[ACertainStark]

Originally Posted by dniv

In the end, I just think that it will take a really long time for people to understand what LN's are, and to start appreciating them. Yen Press translating so many LN's should help, but it'll still probably take quite a while longer before they sink in, and fans will appreciate the inherently better writing found in them. That's my viewpoint anyway.

It's why English publishers aren't really dipping into the LN market yet. I know Seven Seas has made it clear that while it's doing better than the first wave, it's still way too early and such impressions support that. Manga is also easier to read so people obviously go for that. Not surprised about ANN since I don't think they were ever that knowledgeable, but in terms of coverage, it's featured a lot less.

It may fail again since it's so early, but even if it didn't it'll be a long time (or never) before we get obscure series that do okay and don't have an anime or manga counterpart which sucks.

[Marcus H.]

Guin SagaR never had such drops though and that series is like 5 times longer Index seres + its spin offs(Guin has them too).

Guin Saga is in another league than the LNs of recent. You know it.

[AdrianWernerGOL]

Originally Posted by dniv

I've noticed that this is definitely a thing in the U.S. and it doesn't really seem like you can do much about it. People like lots of pictures, as opposed to some, or they like watching things. Regardless of how much better the story is, readers/viewers are often lazy. Even animenewsnetwork reviewers and the like don't appreciate the difficulty of adapting LN's into anime, and don't consider the original works when they criticize adapted shows.

Well..then the proper solution might be trying to extend outside that audience? I mean..novels absolutely and utterly trash comicbooks and anime in sales numbers as a whole in the west. And YA genre is exploding.

LN are still pretty fresh in the west and it makes sense to use anime/manga fanbases as foundation for LNs growth, but limiting them to this audience seems like wasted opportunity. And looking at what's being released this days I feel like the publishers are starting to branch out more. We're getting light novels based on flop animes like Black Bullet or Strike the Blood and we're even getting LNs that still don't have any anime at all. So it's seems having existing anime fanbase might no longer be necessary.

I really hope western publishers will be able to convince japanese ones to sell them licenses for both print and ebooks, because lack of ebooks for most of LNs seems like terrible terrible waste. It does seem to be slowly changing too as some of the recent ones are getting ebook releases. Especially when it comes to longer series not having ebooks might hurt them badly.

[ACertainStark]

Thought I'd share another finding. I found this through reading the news about Kadokawa planning to include light novels in their English Book Walker App, which is Kadokawa's e-book platform. All of Kamachi's series (mainly Index) are sold on Book Walker and are up-to-date.

Link: http://bookwalker.jp/author/655/

Additionally, it features Railgun, Index-san, Accelerator, Endymion and his other series manga, as well. Assuming I'm correct, Book Walker has the option of reading on PC.

[Chaos2Frozen]

On their ENGLISH app you say...?

[ACertainStark]

Well, Kamachi's series and all that good stuff is on the Japanese app/site. But they have an English App that they are beginning to focus on and will be adding light novels.

Here: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...-novels/.93346

[ACertainStark]

Thought I'd share an awesome tidbit:
Toaru Series total tops 22.9 Million copies

[devil_slayer]

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

Thought I'd share an awesome tidbit:
Toaru Series total tops 22.9 Million copies

still no season 3 .... ok wow best light novel in japan =.=
BTW toaru sold a 15M when NT10 come out how did it reach 23M ? you maybe mean all kamchi works sold 23M

[devil_slayer]

Ah you mean all the related books now i get you

[Chaos2Frozen]

Just to be sure, total Toaru series right? They didn't include his other works right?

[ACertainStark]

Yep, Toaru Series only. Now, it's unknown if that includes the Shounen GanGan works like Index and Nichijou Index-san, but Railgun probably makes up the remaining portion.

At Comiket, they actually had a large HO advertisement promoting that Kamachi Kazuma's related works total topped 23.5 Million. Now that HO has very recently hit 1.2 Million, it's probably higher.

[devil_slayer]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Just to be sure, total Toaru series right? They didn't include his other works right?

yes just toaru series is about 23,000,000 kamchi total works is 23,500,000 not that much different HO hit 1,200,000 so the total right now is higher for all kamchi works

whatever let see how the HO do after that it got an anime =.=

[SibylEnd]

i doubt it; but would this figure take into account english sales? i'd like to think that my localised purchases contributed to this number. not that it matters since i imported a japanese copy anyway.

[ACertainStark]

Originally Posted by SibylEnd

i doubt it; but would this figure take into account english sales? i'd like to think that my localised purchases contributed to this number. not that it matters since i imported a japanese copy anyway.

Probably minimal at this point in time. I think they would have said it included worldwide like they did with SAO, which is at 16.7 Million when counting WW numbers.

[devil_slayer]

i don't think it would make much different

[dniv]

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

Probably minimal at this point in time. I think they would have said it included worldwide like they did with SAO, which is at 16.7 Million when counting WW numbers.

Wait? SAO has sold less than Index? Really? YES! (such competitiveness... )

[GDB]

Considering Index has 2-3x as many volumes as SAO, I would hope so.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by GDB

Considering Index has 2-3x as many volumes as SAO, I would hope so.

Well, I know that, but it's annoying since I sort of dislike seeing SAO do so incredibly well. Don't get me wrong. It has good ideas. It's just executed incredibly poorly with far too much fan-service and "plot". I just assumed that SAO had already outsold Index, so it's nice to see that Index has actually sold more. Good taste still sort of exists...

I sort of see SAO as wish-fulfillment, and I can promise you that I don't see Index as wish-fulfillment, which is why I'm at least happy that Index has... even if it's just temporary... outsold SAO, something that would normally be a lot more popular with many more people because it's pure wish-fulfillment.

[ACertainStark]

The confusing thing was in most recent Kadokawa press release, they report SAO at 11.3 Million. I'm guessing that means it's only counting Japan and maybe Asia when reporting that.

So it would be:
Index - 15.62 Million / Toaru Series- 22.9 Million
SAO Domestic - 11.3 Million
SAO WW - 16.7 million (Japan, Taiwan, China, Korea, Thailand, America, Canada, and Great Britain)
http://ir.kadokawa.co.jp/topics/20150917_c3q87.pdf
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...rldwide/.82398

[tsunade666]

You can't compare SAO and Index.

Index is a longer running series than SAO.

Individually, SAO most likely sold more.