Index Light Novels have been licensed by Yen Press

[Chaos2Frozen]

Originally Posted by edomaeexa

It's an estimate unfortunately but I will visit bet on it that it is near that figure considering the popularity of the series plus its sales power.

Also, many manga publishers like viz media, Kodansha, etc are subsidiaries of the Japanese publishers, meaning they don't really require licensing in reality. Explains why Naruto and Co. is a profit makers.

Do you have a reference to an "average" licencing cost then? That would be more reliable than just ballparking it with the highest value imagined.

Actually even before that have Yen Press even revealed the condition of their contract with Dengeki? Or are you just speculating the worst case scenario?

[edomaeexa]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Do you have a reference to an "average" licencing cost then? That would be more reliable than just ballparking it with the highest value imagined.

Actually even before that have Yen Press even revealed the condition of their contract with Dengeki? Or are you just speculating the worst case scenario?

It's a leak...

[R.LocK]

C'mon. Is it the guy whose dirty talk I was forced to delete from BT's Index Talk page? Even if not, that line of thinking is so similar that I'm, for one, going to dismiss this.

Sorry, but I don't believe that YP is a bunch of enthusiasts to keep a drowning boat which S&P in this case afloat for what... six, five, four years? Whatever. No one in his right mind does. I do think that they're breaking it even, at the very least.

YO is a very big project. If it does cost them as much as you've said, then... hey, then YP's going down. Yes, I mean the entire YP with manga thingy and other stuff. It's not profitable, it's not smart, it's not even a decision. Sorry, edomaeexa, your posts are just an attention grabbing, as I see it.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by edomaeexa

It's an estimate unfortunately but I will visit bet on it that it is near that figure considering the popularity of the series plus its sales power.

Also, many manga publishers like viz media, Kodansha, etc are subsidiaries of the Japanese publishers, meaning they don't really require licensing in reality. Explains why Naruto and Co. is a profit makers.

So this is a response to your long post and your other various posts. While it does seem true that costs seem absurd since each word is like 17-19 cents apparently in some cases, I think it might be at least slightly different in the case of to aru series.

Let me give a few very good reasons for this, while I also acknowledge that yes, it likely costs more to license in the US because of the larger population that in places like Taiwan.

But let me offer a few pieces of good news in this case:

1. Companies succeed by using their eventual dominance and name to obtain services, products, and information individuals want for much less since they are an established name. Yen Press recently announced it is going to vastly expand in size with regards to its translations efforts. Not only is that a good sign, but the increasing popularity of light novels in the US market following other big hits is already a good sign in itself. As an analogy, crunchyroll eventually has become the premier streaming service for anime in the US, so it's gotten a lot of influence and a small project eventually became huge, having an estimate worth of hundreds of millions of dollars. Now it's much easier for crunchyroll to get series to stream on their sight since the anime industry likes the publicity even if it is streaming. I imagine a similar phenomenon will happen with yen press and it will use other past failures with other companies to make smarter decisions about succeeding in publishing LN's. I'm pretty sure the whole point of licensing the series is to make a profit in the long term even if they have a temporary deficit in earnings. That's known as long term planning. This is especially true since this series is very requested and has the potential in becoming super popular.

2. The index series is extremely long. This bodes extremely well for yen press even though at first glance it might seem like it definitely wouldn't be the case. The point is that if they take the risk to translate this series, they could get lots of potential benefits. Let me remind you all of why:
Subpoint a.
It's such a long series no one wants to translate it in the first place. This means they would jump on the chance for someone who wants to take the risk to localize it and knows what they are doing. It means they won't be that picky since they don't have much of a choice at all. Considering the manga isn't even out in the US, and they're slowly becoming more aware of western interest in the series, it's an especially good time to let the west localize it.
Subpoint b.
Since this series is so long it means that they can rely on it for a long time especially if it becomes popular. It helps that the light novel market is still new and if the Alan market does get more popular like what happened suddenly in 2006 in Japan with the sudden introduction of Haruhi, then they'll have one of the largest long term huge series under their belt and as long as their company survives, they'll be able to wait as long as they want to ride that wave of popularity since they have one of the biggest series in Japan now.

There is always doom and gloom accompanying new movements like this especially because people don't like shelling out money to support series they like reading for free, but I want to emphasize that if we as outsiders to the actual going abouts of the industry actually knew what we were talking about when we make claims about the success or failure of such a series, then we would be in the industry and would be doing better than the people who "screw up." But we aren't in the industry because they obviously know better than we do. I believe anyone who thinks they know more than a corporation that is earnestly trying to make large changes in the consumer landscape has no clue what they're talking about especially since at heart all business want to succeed and turn a profit. They wouldn't invest that much money if they weren't going to turn a huge profit. They'd obviously put way more research than any of us could into seeing whether or not such a move would be a success. If it really does cost that much money, and there's no way it costs as much as you said even if it does cost a lot, then they wouldn't just stupidly throw away tens of millions of dollars. Who even does that? Why in your right mind would you think someone would even do that. This f's base needs to get a grip and calm down seriously. Who do you think you guys are? Omniscient gods of the industry or something that know better than the people actually in the industry who are spending tons of money to try to pull of large financial or other investments? I rest my case. I don't know much about it, but I've heard good things about yen press especially in comparison to thinks like tokyopop, so I'll just end my rant/criticism here.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by edomaeexa

It's obvious, the licensing of these light novels are very expensive, the Index Series along will cause at least 100 million dollars at least to license (licensing isn't free you know ) .

Are you high? Because seriously, from quick research volume 22 sold about 100k units. Even assuming $5 per unit, and not even factoring in that $5 is not pure profit, that's only $500k per volume. Even at 30 volumes, that's only $15 million. Yet you actually think a mere license would be more than 6x the total revenue generated by the franchise?

Originally Posted by edomaeexa

The licence that Yen press has with Kadokawa Shoten is just a per volume licensing. This is because if the first volume flop, the series will flop as well and cause a loss to Yen press, this kind of licensing is cheaper and more risky at the same time. Even if it's is successful, Yen press will still make a loss.

It's only cheaper if you assume it's going to be a loss, which obviously a company would not do because if they assume it's a loss and go for it anyway, when it won't be bringing in any additional revenue streams, then they're a horrible company and wouldn't have even survived this long. As such, what you're saying is totally being pulled out of your ass.

Assuming the per volume licensing stands at 1 million dollars at the moment, Each Index volume must sell beyond 500,000 copies for Yen press to profit and consider it as success.

Yeah, let's assume that the licensing costs per volume are at least twice the revenue stream of the volumes in Japan. That seems logical! And please, you think they haven't actually done risk analysis on this series? They know it won't sell 500k copies, which is 5x more copies than Japan. Thus, it's logical to conclude that you once again pulled numbers out of nowhere.

If you think Spice and Wolf light novel is successful, you so wrong. It's because of the manga sales that Yen press is still managing to release the light novels and Yen press is barely making any profit from the light novel sales.

A profit is a profit. If it makes a profit, it's successful. The return on investment may not have been met for that particular series, but obviously Haruhi more than met the ROI or else they wouldn't continue (and even expand) the Light Novel brand.

Remember, it's a per volume license Yen press have not a master license (Whole series). They may have an agreement with the publisher to licensing the whole series but that's different from licensing the series.

Meaning... Index series is already a flop before the first book is even released, which is just so funny.

Which is your assumption, and a wrong one at that. Try again, but maybe put a little bit of thought into it next time?

Originally Posted by edomaeexa

No source, unfortunately but it's a analysis.

As expected. However, it is not an analysis, as you did not analyze anything. You made assumptions based on nothing but your perceived ideas with no data to back them up.

Originally Posted by edomaeexa

Also, it's worth to note that with the launch of the Comic walker app, a similar app for light novels is already imminent and it will likely feature the index series.

You clearly have no idea how a license works. How many of the series on Comic Walker are otherwise licensed? None. Why? Because licenses of this nature are exclusive. It's why you don't see any shenanigans like both Funimation and Sentai releasing their own versions of Attack on Titan.

Originally Posted by edomaeexa

Let's note that success doesn't always mean profit. Check out what happened to the Reborn! manga series.

Do you have sale numbers, along with production costs, overheard, and licensing fees to back up the notion that it made a profit?

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Actually even before that have Yen Press even revealed the condition of their contract with Dengeki? Or are you just speculating the worst case scenario?

It's not even a worst case scenario, as it cannot happen. He's speculating what he wants to speculate in order to try and doom and gloom everyone.

[R.LocK]

So, BS's ended before even starting gaining magnitude?

[Chaos2Frozen]

I should hope so, I almost wanted to bring in Relentless but decided against it.

His entire point revolves around the cost of licensing which even I know sounds absurd at 1 million per volume.

[ACertainStark]

Originally Posted by R.LocK

So, BS's ended before even starting gaining magnitude?

For once, it seems so.

Though I have to wonder why so much freaking out remains...

[edomaeexa]

White flag. Sorry if I offended anyone but I only just want to praise and remember the efforts of countless fan translators and editors that worked throughout the whole light novel series. Seeing their work disappear like they never existed is just too much for me to take. Let's not forget this, without them, this series won't even become known in the western world.

I will still keep my views and await the results of this licensing, will it be a success or disaster? Only time will tell. Let's remember the Zero no Tsukaima series, licensed but never released by the English publisher out of respect for fan translators. Why doesn't the the Index series get the same treatment?

I'm just a person who value the work of people who spend countless of hours translating and editing.

[Burden]

It's definitely profitable. Localizations are pretty cheap, the source material is already there and just needs to be translated. That person is comparing licensing this to licensing something like Star Wars.

Let me put it in simply terms (economics major here), licensing business plans only work when the source material/product/patent/etc (one being licensed) is already immensely popular (read: profitable or useful). A franchise making only tens of millions of dollars cumulatively (this is encompassing everything from anime to toys to novels) will never garner a licensing fee greater than tens of thousands of dollars (and if that, for a novel series).

Then, there's an additional point, it's a book. Royalties will go directly to the writer and a cut of the profits will be eaten by the original publisher (Dengeki). There's rarely enough meat on he bone for such an extravagant fee for localization ventures.

Anyways, the upside to this sort of model is that the margins are nice. Once they translate, publish and ship the books, they're making a decent amount of cash off of each unit. The challenge is selling enough units for YP to be happy with it.

[OH&S]

Okay, a semi-relevant question here.

How can a LN licensing and localization of a series be handled badly?

Specifically, what exactly happened with Hidan no Aria? (and Kino no Tabi?)

What are the things Yen Press must do to make sure this bold move with Index plays out well? (Bundling 3 novels into one and releasing them seems like the best method to me. The quicker they can get to the God's Right Seat Arc the better.)

[dragon1412]

Originally Posted by OH&S

Okay, a semi-relevant question here.

How can a LN licensing and localization of a series be handled badly?

Specifically, what exactly happened with Hidan no Aria? (and Kino no Tabi?)

What are the things Yen Press must do to make sure this bold move with Index plays out well? (Bundling 3 novels into one and releasing them seems like the best method to me. The quicker they can get to the God's Right Seat Arc the better.)

generally is that they mistook the scale of fanbase. Let's say you have a very popular LN in JP, and many fan in US wish for it too, but the things is the entire anime-manga fanbase in US isn't that large to begin with. 2nd is taste, it's hard to let's someone who don't see much manga-anime to enjoy it since there is culture differences. Hna and Shana is the prime example of 2 above reasons. Shana is without a doubt, popular but interm of foreign fanbase, it isn't as great as in japan.
Hate to say this but there is a very high chance of backlash if the translation quality is not very good, since people may compare, with fan translation which actually have a very high quality threshold. 3 novels into 1 is just never work. since that deal with the cover, material, and possibly comparison with the translation and cover already on BT, You want to reach GRS arc soon but the company want more people to buy it, so they will take their time to build up for people that never knew the series before, i estimates that it will be about 5 years till they finished with the 1st series. NT is unknown.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by dragon1412

generally is that they mistook the scale of fanbase. Let's say you have a very popular LN in JP, and many fan in US wish for it too, but the things is the entire anime-manga fanbase in US isn't that large to begin with. 2nd is taste, it's hard to let's someone who don't see much manga-anime to enjoy it since there is culture differences. Hna and Shana is the prime example of 2 above reasons. Shana is without a doubt, popular but interm of foreign fanbase, it isn't as great as in japan.
Hate to say this but there is a very high chance of backlash if the translation quality is not very good, since people may compare, with fan translation which actually have a very high quality threshold. 3 novels into 1 is just never work. since that deal with the cover, material, and possibly comparison with the translation and cover already on BT, You want to reach GRS arc soon but the company want more people to buy it, so they will take their time to build up for people that never knew the series before, i estimates that it will be about 5 years till they finished with the 1st series. NT is unknown.

Asong as we get season 3 or two of them sometime in that five year period. I don't really mind. The hype would easily help me wait for it though then again for some reason I now remember that the anime is never nearly as good as the novels.

Darn. Well... Let's hope a miracle happens (ie jc staff does well next season) or they're doing something else worthwhile like a reboot...

[Miraluka]

I just wish Haimura would remake the covers for the English version of the first 10 volume covers at least something like he did for Vol.1.

[ACertainStark]

That would be nice. Though I doubt he'd do it... since he'd also have to re-do all illustrations.

[dniv]

Originally Posted by ACertainStark

That would be nice. Though I doubt he'd do it... since he'd also have to re-do all illustrations.

And as Kamachis illustrator we're all sure he's already fainting from overwork as he is already...

[WiliamZ0]

Originally Posted by dniv

And as Kamachis illustrator we're all sure he's already fainting from overwork as he is already...

Keeping up with Kamachi, make any illustrator (LN & Manga) make them gained double EXP Xp and still forced to upgrade to next level

You guys might note how crazy the change of illustration based on Index LN and manga if you guys follow them up

[FiveOVER]

I can only hope for the best. Please be a success! But I'm really worried since index is not as popular as SAO in the west.

[Utsuro no Hako]

Originally Posted by OH&S

Okay, a semi-relevant question here.

How can a LN licensing and localization of a series be handled badly?

Specifically, what exactly happened with Hidan no Aria? (and Kino no Tabi?)

As I recall, nobody knew HnA was licensed until the book appeared on the Digital Manga website, so that's strike one right there. They also released it as an ebook exclusive, which severely limited the number of people who'll read it, and on top of that it wasn't available on Amazon until a couple months later. In short, DMP is incompetent. (Don't get me started on their actual manga -- I'm still angry at how awful their release of Aoi Hana is.)

Kino was from Tokyo Pop -- enough said.

As for Shakugan no Shana, look at this:



How is anybody browsing a bookstore ever going to know that one of those is a novel? I know the guy who runs Viz's sci-fi novel line has said they avoid anime-style covers now because bookstore clerks kept shelving Shakugan no Shana with the manga, which prevented it from reaching a wider audience.

That's probably why Yen had two different editions of Haruhi and did the slip-covers on Spice and Wolf. They've moved away from that recently, with SAO and Accel World getting the original novel covers. Maybe with the demise of Borders and decline of B&N, and more people buying online, the cover art doesn't play as big a role, or maybe they've given up on attracting mainstream SF fans.

[BW95]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

As I recall, nobody knew HnA was licensed until the book appeared on the Digital Manga website, so that's strike one right there. They also released it as an ebook exclusive, which severely limited the number of people who'll read it, and on top of that it wasn't available on Amazon until a couple months later. In short, DMP is incompetent. (Don't get me started on their actual manga -- I'm still angry at how awful their release of Aoi Hana is.)

Kino was from Tokyo Pop -- enough said.

As for Shakugan no Shana, look at this:



How is anybody browsing a bookstore ever going to know that one of those is a novel? I know the guy who runs Viz's sci-fi novel line has said they avoid anime-style covers now because bookstore clerks kept shelving Shakugan no Shana with the manga, which prevented it from reaching a wider audience.

That's probably why Yen had two different editions of Haruhi and did the slip-covers on Spice and Wolf. They've moved away from that recently, with SAO and Accel World getting the original novel covers. Maybe with the demise of Borders and decline of B&N, and more people buying online, the cover art doesn't play as big a role, or maybe they've given up on attracting mainstream SF fans.

Where should they have put it? With regular novels or in an actual light novel section?