[Poll] How much is one digital volume of a JP light novel worth?

So I know this is a controversial topic, but I was curious about this.

What do you believe is a fair price (USD) for one volume of a newly translated JP light novel (e.g. Sword Art Online, Spice and Wolf), assuming the following:

• It's a digital eBook.
• The translation is decent.
• It has some form of DRM so you can't freely share it with everyone on the Internet.
• It's published by the official publisher, meaning the author and official translator get a cut of the pie for each copy that is sold.
• It's a brand new release.

You don't have to answer what you would be able to pay. Rather, I'm solely interested in what you believe is "fair" for everyone involved.

Even if you would ordinarily get the book from a "free" channel like a library, I'm curious about how much you think the library should pay the publisher to buy each copy of the book.

Please don't say "free", because even if you bought the novel in Japan, it wouldn't be free. The authors still have to eat. Also please note that this discussion is about light novels, not web novels, meaning the stories have already been worked up and curated by an editor/publishing company.

 

Since its digital it should be below 10$. Since that's the usual with ebooks too
Then we have to look at the actual number of digital pages that are present and if they include artwork. but if I were to generalize I'd pay between 2-7$ or so dollars a bit more if I really liked the book.
Note:I've never actually purchased a digital light novel before

 

No more than $7 for an ebook, and that's only for the highest-quality with good quantity. You have to compare them to regular Western published novels which are frequently better and longer and in ebook form can frequently be found from for under $15 or so dollars (and the most expensive ones are only that price for the super early purchases) and also frequently go on sale for cheaper. So no more than $7 for a LN ebook. And for the vast majority, no more than a few bucks.

 

How long is it? For me I would pay the same going rate as an ebook...

20,000 words £1-2
20,000 - 50,000 £3-4
50,000 - 100,000 £4-5
100,000 + £5-7

One thing to also consider is whether the web novel is still available...

 

Just use the "typical" JP light novel as a benchmark.

Idk how long the average JP light novel is in terms of word count though. XD

 

First you have to consider that there is no paper print involved and that it can be bought by anyone in the world with no shipping cost involved, thus 2$-5$ at most is enough, how fast is sold and how many are sold are solely depend on the popularity and publicity of the novel.... if its in english it would go up a lot if its popular

 

3-5 dollars

 

Sword Art Online is around 75,000 words so I would be happy paying £4-5 for it.

But that is also because I know it will be action packed and interesting throughout.

With many light novels originating from web novels, sometimes they have to be longer in order to accommodate a decent amount of story. Some can be really slow to start and build up momentum. I wouldn't pay that much for 75,000 words of the character growing from a baby to age 5... Unless they had a super active toddler-hood!

 

Since the paperback light novels cost 1 000 yen (9.10 USD) I'd say an ebook should cost around half of that, i.e. 5 USD.

 

Honestly, I think WNs sell better cheaply (maybe a dollar or so) to a lot of people, similar to patreons. If it's maybe 5 dollars a volume, and then you see this 50 volume series, you may decide not to go near it. Even books, you usually spend maybe $10 when it catches your eye and then make use of the library

 

[ID] Penguin Summer hardcopy = $5

 

Does that affect the value of a light novel, in your opinion?

What if a pirated version is freely available, or the fan translation is freely available?

I think it certainly affects how much customers would be willing to pay. I'm not sure if it changes the intrinsic value of the light novel itself though. I'm sort of the opinion that intrinsic value is... more meaningful then than sticker price. It's how much you think that it's worth, or what the fair price should be irregardless of surrounding circumstances.

 

Word count is around 200 pages for one. Production cost is zero forever after being digitised. There is no used market for digital goods who by should power price because you can't even lend it to a friend and they don't have to compete with old products. It has been translated by a specialist so that raises the price. It's edited and that also raises the price. It's mass produced cause copy and paste is the most efficient form of mass production which should lower the price. I think five dollars is fair. You can get a 300 to 400 page book off Amazon for about that amount unless it's one of the major series like iron druid or Mercedes Thompson.

 

I'd go with $5-6 on average for a complete volume. Though that's if it's not full of errors, in which case I'd rather not waste my money. I've seen too many screw ups from translators / editor's where words like through as in to pass through something get put as thorough. Stupid mistakes like that make me want to not pay at all.

 

For people who are curious about how much ebook light novels cost in JP (for reference):

Spoiler

On bookwalker.jp which is by the publisher Kadokawa, the typical digital light novel (untranslated) go for around 600 yen, which is about $5.50 USD with current conversion rates.

 

Is have bought a few as I want to support the authors but I do so under duress as fucking j novel club won't do physical books. I hate digital books I read translations on the computer as i have no choice but once it's picked up and legit money is being charges I want a real book.

 

Usually stories sold in books are around 20-60 dollars each volume.
But for a Ebook the prices drop like almost 50 percent so yes 10 dollar is a fair price

 

Oof, this is really a touchy subject, especially considering what's going on with publishing companies lately...But I'll still answer.

In my opinion, it has to do with the overall novel itself (plot, popularity, art if there's any, etc.), and whether the novel is one a person would purchase a digital copy of, if s/he would rather purchase the paperback, or if s/he would rather read it for free. Although there are plenty of manga and light novels that are shared for free online and there are also plenty which have to be purchased online, I still tend to have raw volumes on my bookshelf, because I just prefer to buy paperback copies, not digital ones. And that's my preference; I would rather pay more for paperbacks, than purchase digital copies. And, as unethical as it is, I would rather read online for free than purchase digital copies; yes, it might seem terrible of me, but when I purchase something, I don't necessarily consider whether I'm doing it for the good of the author (or 'supporting' them). I just purchase because I really want the novel, it's as simple as that.

While I do agree that the intrinsic value of a light novel definitely more meaningful than its sticker price (that is, if you are talking about it's overall worth, and not solely it's monetary price), and I do appreciate the authors' hard work, in actuality, how many people would really purchase a digital copy of a light novel that's priced the same as it's paperback? I'm sure people would rather stop reading all together (or just read for free), than purchase a digital copy when they could just buy its paperback, even if they wanted to support the author. Although, in my opinion, the digital copy and the paperback should be priced around the same seeing as they are both the hard work of the author--maybe slightly less for digital copies considering that is how most digital books/light novels/etc. are priced. That really isn't how it works. Normally, digital copies are around 1/2 the price (more or less) of the paperback copy. If I did like purchasing digital novels, I would buy them for around the normal price; I wouldn't purchase them if they were priced any higher, even if they 'should' be priced higher and even if I wanted to support the author. But really, I would rather read them for free or just purchase the paperback...

I feel as if I digressed from the topic quite a lot.... Oh well....

 

I tend to judge e-books by Kindle pages so:

0-100 pages = under £1 on average
100-200 pages = under £2 on average
200-300 pages = under £3 on average
Etc.

 

$6 or $7. Why? Because people need to eat. For author, $2-$2.5 per digital copy is good enough if the market is worldwide. $1-$2 for the translator. $1-$2 is for the illustration, after all, light novels carry illustrations as a rule.

You'd probably argue that Chinese light novels have no illustration. I'm here to tell you that those aren't light novels. The Chinese novels you read on those websites are called web novels, not light novels.

Anyhow, you also have to take into account how much is the distributor's (medium of sale such as Amazon) cut. It can be as high as 35% in some cases (I don't remember how much Amazon takes a cut of my book sales). So out of 5 bucks, the people who actually work on the book likely only get like $3 for each sale, shared between them. That's not much at all.

If you consider that this is not indie and the publisher also needs to make money, it can well go as high as $9 or $11.