/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15409833]

I'm fucking starting a LN publishing house. How do I make it work /lit/?

[Anonymous No.15409838]

ask >>>/a/

[Anonymous No.15409839]

it's easy, you start by explaining to me what an LN publishing house is

[Anonymous No.15409872]

>>15409838
Now, that's funny anon.

>>15409839
It's a publishing house that makes LN (Light Novels). Obliously with genres and themes aimed at teens, young-adults, failed-adults, people that like easygoing stories, fun stuff and everyone not wanting to start with the greeks.

[Anonymous No.15409966]

>>15409872
Are LNs manga or text?

[Anonymous No.15409987]

>>15409872
What's the difference between this and YA?

[Anonymous No.15410010]

>>15409966
text, with some images.

>>15409987
Excellent question, I would say that nowadays LN take a lot from the japanese media storytelling style rather than western YA stuff. But we wouldn't limit ourselves or rather, we couldn't hope to do something similar and it would be a little of both.

[Anonymous No.15410018]

>>15409872
You mean Western people writing it, instead of translating Japanese, Chinese and Korean works?

I think the competition is hard, because there are already plenty of LNs.
At the same time, I imagine that there are probably many creative people in the West who would could write popular series about busty elves and battle tournaments but who can't do it because the publishers usually want modern progressive politics mostly.

[Anonymous No.15410041]

>>15410018
>You mean Western people writing it, instead of translating Japanese, Chinese and Korean works?
Yes.

>I think the competition is hard, because there are already plenty of LNs.
You are absolutely right, but still I think there is some market niches were we can compete. Also, the market is growing double digits on that particular format. To give you an example, 10 years ago LN/Manga was less than 5% of the catalogue of the average comic books shop, now it's around 50%

>At the same time, I imagine that there are probably many creative people in the West who would could write popular series about busty elves and battle tournaments but who can't do it because the publishers usually want modern progressive politics mostly.

[Anonymous No.15410049]

>>15410018
Sorry, I forgot to answer the last one.

>>At the same time, I imagine that there are probably many creative people in the West who would could write popular series about busty elves and battle tournaments but who can't do it because the publishers usually want modern progressive politics mostly.
This as well. It's easier to piggyback on the japanese way of storytelling to have a way to publish all those things the current industry doesn't want to.

[Anonymous No.15410136]

Step 1. Have a lot of money.
Step 2. File the formation of a company.
Step 3. Figure out how you will print your books, by buying a press or getting someone else to.
Step 4. Source talent, this is the broad step.
A. Advertise for authors (and wade through shit).
B. Introduce yourself to agents and tell them what you're looking for.
C. Get the license to reprint an english translation of foreign works.
Step 4 (optional): Don't get fucked legally, invest in good lawyer.
Step 5. Sell books. Do so via Amazon, etc. If you have money you can hire someone who has worked for a larger house to do this. If not, I hope you have sales experience because it can be a ball-ache getting stores to buy your books.


T. man who has set up his own publishing co.

[Anonymous No.15410188]

>>15409872
I love the Greeks AND Light Novels

[Anonymous No.15410189]

>>15410136
Those are some good advices, thank you anon.
>C. Get the license to reprint an english translation of foreign works.
This might be a little tricky as some companies like VIZ media are really rough competitors and basically already took the translation market.
>Step 4 (optional): Don't get fucked legally, invest in good lawyer.
The Lord knows how good this advice is.

>Step 5. Sell books. Do so via Amazon, etc. If you have money you can hire someone who has worked for a larger house to do this. If not, I hope you have sales experience because it can be a ball-ache getting stores to buy your books.
This is something I would like to ask for your experience anon. For a small house, wouldn't be better to sell almost everything via amazon and only traditional on very secure stuff?
Thanks for the advice anon.

[Anonymous No.15410255]

>>15410188
Very good anon, pls buy my stuff.

[Anonymous No.15410320]

>>15409833
Why would someone want to pay you to publish their LNs when they can (and are already) self-publishing through amazon and other well-established platforms? What support will you offer the author? Do you have a marketing team? Will you help in the editing process? Are you going to handle translation for foreign language novels? How will you compete against the deluge of LNs found in places like Wattpad, Fanfiction, Webnovel, as well as the innumerable blogs whose authors all provide their work for free?

[Anonymous No.15410431]

>>15410320
>Why would someone want to pay you to publish their LNs when they can (and are already) self-publishing through amazon and other well-established platforms?
For the reasons you enumerate later on. We have a marketing team, we will help with the editing process (God knows LN authors need that), I'll give the author the best support we can provide, specially on public relations with his audience which is central on today's industry.
>Translation on foreign novels
No, that will most likely not do.
>How will you compete against the deluge of LNs found in places like Wattpad, Fanfiction, Webnovel, as well as the innumerable blogs whose authors all provide their work for free?
In the same way the industry does: By the sheer force of marketing and a better edition.
We are not trying to innovate and revolutionize the industry but to find a place on a market niche.

[Anonymous No.15410521]

>>15410431
Can show some samples of your work then? In particular editing and marketing. References to actual work would be better, but obviously given the anonymous environment here I can't expect that.

[Anonymous No.15410537]

>>15409833
Anyone that likes lightnovels should be lynched along with thier family's for producing such a catastrophic failure

[Anonymous No.15410548]

>>15410537
Families*

[Anonymous No.15410550]

>>15410521
I would very much like to show you my portfolio to get an accurate critic from a fellow anon but as you said, it's not very good marketing to being linked with a mongolian cave-shadow imageboard; nor is a good idea to have said taiwanese knit basket forum access to your livelihood.

[Anonymous No.15410555]

Publish my stuff

[Anonymous No.15410557]

>>15409833
Average teen these days is already dumb and brainwashed by liberal media jews, yet you want to make him even dumber and even a bigger failure in life and make a profit of it.
Just commit suicide, dude.

[Anonymous No.15410583]

>>15410537
Liking LN =/= producing LN
To the windmill you go.

[Anonymous No.15410619]

>>15410555
Alright anon, show me what you got.

>>15410557
Yes.
>Just commit suicide, dude
no

[Anonymous No.15410948]

>>15410583
He said the family for producing the reader retard

[Anonymous No.15411069]

>>15410948
I know, thanks for the bump anon :^) , it's incredible how the human need to correct someone can be such an incredible tool

[Anonymous No.15411290]

>>15409833
No one gives a fuck about this faggot shit in the west. If you want to make money make mommy cummies chapbooks. Otherwise actually print serious material or new versions of out of print books. Paper doesn't need to be wasted on your horse shit project.

[Anonymous No.15411573]

>>15409833
Publisher anon, I just set up my own publishing imprint in advance of the launch my of first book series, so I kind of know what you're going through.

In fact, your idea sounds like fun, and, as a fellow writer, I'm intrigued. When will you start accepting applications? Sounds like a fun side project.

[Anonymous No.15412305]

>>15411290
The market says otherwise, whether we like it or not. Thankfully, I do like it.

>>15411573
I'm trying to start operation later this year and start actually publishing for Spring 2021. Right now I'm on the process of getting everything set, having the capital ready, and basically the market research. This thread is market research as well.

[Anonymous No.15412538]

>>15412305
Different guy here

How much capital do you need for setting up one of these businesses?

Also do you have prior experience in the publishing industry?

[Anonymous No.15412669]

>>15412538
>How much capital do you need for setting up one of these businesses?
That's a REALLY tricky question. Hell, my graduation paper was about that. The answer is...as much as you can. It's bizarre, because you have the indie/small house scene with part-timers and hobby guys which can go broke with a couple of bad projects and then the paper-mills which maintain a certain profit with sheer volume independently of how good or bad the books are, there is hardly a middle ground.
It really depends what kind of projects you want to make and how much manpower and talent you have at your dispose. Also, going auto-publishing is another deal. I'll give you the very arbitrary number of US$ 25k if you are going with a small but full-time operation, but you can start publishing with a lot less than that. I really don't know what you have in mind and specially where do you want to set up your house.

>Also do you have prior experience in the publishing industry?
Yes, as an author on a small house entrepreneurship. It was the worst yet an invaluable experience. Besides that, my undergraduate paper was about setting a publishing house, so I have some research as well. You could say this publishing house is the culmination of that paper.

[Anonymous No.15412687]

>>15412669
Very interesting, thanks.

What defines small house as opposed to the larger publishers, where's the cutoff? Or are there other categories in between those two

[Anonymous No.15412751]

>>15412687
>What defines small house as opposed to the larger publishers, where's the cutoff?
It's very hard to define that as there is literally no middle ground. You have this niche little houses with some good stuff that survive with less than 1m of gross income a year and then you have Penguin. Their strategies and even process are so different it almost seems like they are playing a different game.
If you want MY opinion, probably the cut would be if you go broke or not after 3-5 consecutive bad projects. If you survive, then it means you have the capital to tank the losses and that your house has enough following that even the bad-case scenario of your projects ain't that bad.

[Anonymous No.15412838]

enjoy having all of your hard work stolen by your former partners in crime, who will insist that piracy is not theft.

[Anonymous No.15414571]

Based.

[Anonymous No.15414573]

>>15410189
You're welcome. It's very exciting starting a new press, I remember.

Regarding VIZ media and other such companies taking the translation market, if you had the resources, it would require some work, but you could build up a personal relationship with the owners of the original work. If I were you, I would sell them on your 'boutique' press and that they will receive your undevoted attention.

Of course, you need a name and to have a proven record in being able to move books in addition to that in order for them to go for it.

Regarding the sale of books, Amazon is a very effective and easy way of selling your books. A small house doesn't really need it's own commerce website but it doesn't hurt either, it depends on the resources you have at your disposal.

By the sounds of it, you won't be hiring many individuals involved in sales, so this might be difficult, but I do recommend you contacting purveyors of your product (comic book shops) in order to get some wider market presence. It is very easy for your products to be swallowed by Amazon because it is so large. Especially in starting out you should try and engage with retailers on the ground. With that said, don't print books expecting sales, do it the other way around.

Another decent way of funneling people toward your online retail funnels is online advertisements. I'm not familiar with your particular niche or target market so couldn't really suggest where to put them. If you have extra money then you can contract a marketing firm to handle this.

[Anonymous No.15414592]

>>15409833
Hey man, I'm all for it. I'd much rather have tales about female warriors, queens and the like with massive milkers than the same tired old YA garbage the West is gobbling up nowadays.

[Anonymous No.15416304]

>>15414592
Thanks anon, I'll hope we can produce some nice milkers for you

[Anonymous No.15416386]

>>15414573
Yeah, it's not like we would reject doing translation but until we are solid enough and with a good name, authors in nipland probably wouldn't work with us (except the really trashy ones).

>By the sounds of it, you won't be hiring many individuals involved in sales
Not at first, no. I do want to have a dedicated team on the sales department at some point but that's not easy to build up.
>but I do recommend you contacting purveyors of your product (comic book shops) in order to get some wider market presence. It is very easy for your products to be swallowed by Amazon because it is so large. Especially in starting out you should try and engage with retailers on the ground.
Yeah, I've been contacting some purveyors and small dedicated shops in order to know how do they like to work. It's still too early as we don't have a good manuscript but we are starting to make some steps there.
>Another decent way of funneling people toward your online retail funnels is online advertisements
This is something we have taken very seriously, our market is particularly "more online" than the average reader. They even read more e-books than traditional ones! Do you have any specific advice or experience with online advertisement?

[Anonymous No.15416462]

Can I sign a contract with you?

I have no work but I watch anime 3 hours a day.

[Anonymous No.15416513]

>>15409872
>>15410010
>>15410041
I’ve read a few, it’s hard to come across ones with enjoyable stories when 80% are harem or isekai crap.

but how will you make it stand out? The art will be one selling point, but the stories as well, light novels are short. Those power fantasies, fetish and isekai light novels thrive because the plot is a side thing. People here won’t enjoy the same thing.

Ever read vamp, baccano, or fate/zero, i suggest you focus on genres like that. not long stories based on power fantasy and self insertion, but rather short tales in complex worlds surrounded by mystery.

also >>15410557 is another reason why the same stuff that makes cn/jp/kr WN popular will never be successful here.

[Anonymous No.15416516]

>>15416462
>Can I sign a contract with you?
If you are good yes
>I have no work but I watch anime 3 hours a day.
You gotta pump those numbers anon, you ain't never gonna make it at this rate.

[Anonymous No.15416748]

>>15416513
>I’ve read a few, it’s hard to come across ones with enjoyable stories when 80% are harem or isekai crap.
I've read a ton and you are very considerate putting them at 80%, I'll say it's closer to 95%, from a critic perspective ofc.

>but how will you make it stand out? The art will be one selling point, but the stories as well, light novels are short. Those power fantasies, fetish and isekai light novels thrive because the plot is a side thing. People here won’t enjoy the same thing.
I've beg to differ that people don't enjoy the same thing. They ENJOY it, A LOT. Anyway, you are right that it's not enough to do the same shit and expect to stand out.
Frankly, I've have this mindset that if we try to literally copy the Japanese LN style we are going to fail miserably because people will see it as bad, fake and gay (in the truest sense of the word). Sounds stupid but we are not japanese and we should never try to imitate them. But the reality is that people in the West have this massive liking for their stories. WHY? That's the question. There is some sense in that people always have curiosity for the exotic and I'll have to say that their process and culture are literally incomparable (The whole manga/LN-anime-merchandise-captive market process that Kadokawa runs is fucking nuts).
Still, why do people like those stories? What are they looking for? It ain't some small niche population that like to masturbate with pornography from a far eastern isolated country but I'm talking about big numbers, like dozens of millions on the US and Europe alone. WHY?
Also, the population differentiates themselves from the western comic/YA fiction as well, one could think they are the same thing for readers yet they hardly consider it the same. Sorry for the little rant, I guess I'm not giving you an straight answer.
What I want to say is that I agree with you that there is a good number of people that like that particularly way of telling stories and their themes, and we'd like to not only find out why but maybe give them the answers they are looking for with maybe a little different and more closely related perspective.
>is another reason why the same stuff that makes cn/jp/kr WN popular will never be successful here.
Well, I really don't understand what you want to point out but I guess you refer to the fact that...nope, I really don't know what you are trying to tell me, but cn/jp/kr ARE already starting to be successful here, go to a comic book store if you don't believe me.

[Anonymous No.15417190]

>>15416748
I've thought about the rising popularity of Jap media in the west for a while and I think it comes down to a combination of hypercommercialism combined with the social pressures necessary to make consuming such hypercommercialized media attractive. To put it simply, the west is becoming more and more like Japan: corporatist, commercialized and hyper-capitalistic (just look at our movie industry). It's something like a network or association effect. LNs, comic books, video games and movies are all becoming derivatives of each other (to the point that they're now making movies from game franchises). People who read them are usually engaged in one of the other nodes of this network, so the similarity predisposes them to enjoy another node in the network (that is after all the basis of the new franchise model of movies).

If you look at LNs you'll see that their aesthetics and tropes are emulative of those taken from other commercialized mediums (capeshit, anime, and video games predominantly). The difference in style is only a difference in paint color. What you want to do, to ensure success, is to identify the predominant trends in the current movie and video game market and then publish LNs that are correspondent to those trends. In effect, you want to publish fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off.

You can go further by focusing on genres that have much deeper roots (as the movie industry has done), but just focusing on existing media trends and a decent editing/marketing team should set you a head above what's offered for free.

[Anonymous No.15418320]

>>15417190
>hypercommercialism combined with the social pressures necessary to make consuming such hypercommercialized media attractive.
I would say that is correct but only in Japan's case, remember that most of this IP don't have an overseas strategy because they mostly don't take them into account.
> It's something like a network or association effect. LNs, comic books, video games and movies are all becoming derivatives of each other (to the point that they're now making movies from game franchises). People who read them are usually engaged in one of the other nodes of this network, so the similarity predisposes them to enjoy another node in the network (that is after all the basis of the new franchise model of movies).
So much fucking this. After a while, you realize all this tropes support each other. A character with a defined archetype borrows the complexity from all the other characters with the same archetype making the illusion that said character with a little more than 30 lines of description is a lot more complex than it actually is: the reader just can't remember if character A attributes were originally from them or not but it doesn't matter as the story ask you to think them as the archetype and a little else. Nightmare stuff man.

>
If you look at LNs you'll see that their aesthetics and tropes are emulative of those taken from other commercialized mediums (capeshit, anime, and video games predominantly). The difference in style is only a difference in paint color.
I've got to disagree with you. They do are connected on what you accurately said as a some kind of corporate-creative medium network but they are not the same thing.
>What you want to do, to ensure success, is to identify the predominant trends in the current movie and video game market and then publish LNs that are correspondent to those trends. In effect, you want to publish fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off.
That would be a good strategy, yes, but it's not certain. We like to see personal preferences as something predictable and even moldable, and while it can be done to a degree, a human is way to much complex to accurately predict what the next trend will be like.

>You can go further by focusing on genres that have much deeper roots (as the movie industry has done), but just focusing on existing media trends and a decent editing/marketing team should set you a head above what's offered for free.
Indeed, that's the plan.

[Anonymous No.15418330]

>>15409833
want a business partner?

[Anonymous No.15418696]

>>15416386
Not a significant amount I'm sorry to say. It's of growing importance even to my press but I hired a friend's marketing company to handle that side of things.

I suppose my only advice to you could be to underline the importance of researching keenly the spaces your key target market frequent. Before I launched I spent 7 hours a day online with my marketing team figuring out the 'jugular' we called it. I think this is out of the norm though, as my market is hard to target with ads (tech savvy, silicon valley type individuals mostly).

Best of luck to you!

[Anonymous No.15419042]

Do what Japanese publishers do and drip-feed individual chapters to your customers from all your ongoing works in the form of a periodical magazine. You can sell this on patreon or onlyfans or whatever the kids are throwing money at, on top of selling volumes of each series once there's enough material, which let's you double-dip on people paying for both. I assume it'd also cover a slightly different market segment and there's likely more money in someone subscribing for a few months or so than just buying a single volume.

[Anonymous No.15419170]

>>15409833
Hey, publisher-kun! What else would I like if I liked Boogiepop?

[Anonymous No.15419335]

>>15409833
OP post some contact info so I can write some LN shit for you

[Anonymous No.15419458]

>>15419170
not op but you should try Zaregoto

[Anonymous No.15419652]

>>15418696
I think I haven't asked what is your line of work. Do you publish some kind of tech manuals or is a magazine?
Anyway, thank you for your answers, best of luck to you as well!!

[Anonymous No.15419670]

>>15419042
I'm analyzing different approach of how to release the works. The periodical magazine works IF your magazine is already pretty well know with titles worth buying the pack even if you don't read the other series. That said, I do think there is some potential with doing chapter-per-chapter release, but I haven't figure it out.

[Anonymous No.15419692]

>>15419170
I don't know what you like to read anon, I might unironically say Welcome to the NHK.

[Anonymous No.15419768]

>>15419335
Drop your stuff and /lit/ will decide how juicy the contract will be.

[Anonymous No.15419780]

>>15410018
>>15409833
the real question is: what makes a light novel any different from middle grade fiction? Because there are already hundreds of agents querying MG fiction every single day in the United States. You're right that there are no "light novel publishers" in the US but won't you just be publishing the same shit as Harry Potter and Percy Jackson?

[Anonymous No.15419807]

>>15419670
Do what Playboy did. Put naked anime babes in your magazine so people buy it, then publish quality fiction along with it. The first issue of Playboy had half of Fahrenheit 451.

[Anonymous No.15419822]

>>15419807
This is honestly ingenious. Combine doujins with LNs in the same magazine.

[Anonymous No.15419923]

>>15419807
I wish I could but those bright civilized times are behind us.

>>15419780
Good question, LN are very VERY different compared with the usual YA stuff like HP or Percy Jackson on that while it is aimed to the same age group it doesn't have the same style of story-telling, themes or even complexity. The readers are just not the same.
At this point, LN are intrinsically connected with a more diverse network of content than just the manuscript, and the people who like it actively wants that. I think >>15417190 makes some good points about it. To give you an example, there was no HP paraphernalia until it went really big, while the shittiest LN ALREADY has stuff to sell about the series. That's on the commercial point of view.
Frankly, I sense more kinship with the comic industry than the traditional publishing names. You know, I've had a strangely hard time giving you an answer because it's so obvious to me how Percy Jackson is in no way the same thing as Konosuba on so many levels that I'm at loss of words.
What I can answer is this
>what makes a light novel any different from middle grade fiction?
Do middle grade fiction produce hundreds of millions of dollars per year?

[Anonymous No.15420035]

>>15416513
>I’ve read a few, it’s hard to come across ones with enjoyable stories when 80% are harem or isekai crap.

Isekei isn't bad because it's isekei, when done correctly I would say it's enjoyable. One of my favorite light novel series is ascendance of a bookworm. The world building is really good.

[Anonymous No.15420047]

>>15419923
>while it is aimed to the same age group it doesn't have the same style of story-telling, themes or even complexity.

[Anonymous No.15420119]

>>15420047
Well yes, what can't you understand from the same page you posted?

[Anonymous No.15420491]

>>15420119
Well it's about the same quality as a Goosebumps book. I would love to one day read one of these elusive LN that aren't Amelia Bedilia: the Harem.

[Anonymous No.15422051]

Accept my LN, senpai

[Anonymous No.15422079]

>>15409833
By publishing my 200 page light novel on magical girls who are perpetually tortured in order for another magical girl to take on the suffering of JESUS CHRIST and remake the world.

[Anonymous No.15422121]

>>15422051
Give us the elevator pitch

[Anonymous No.15422565]

Are you Japanese? If not, I don’t really see a Westerner ever cracking into this market. Maybe you could go provide translations.

[Anonymous No.15422575]

I’m in my late twenties and just discovered this stuff recently (LN, manga, anime). It’s so much better than our garbage western media.

[Anonymous No.15422623]

Explain to me why you people read these little girl books

It looks like dogshit aimed at children

[Anonymous No.15422818]

>>15422623
>It looks like dogshit aimed at children
But it’s not. At least, not all of it. It’s pretty close to YA fiction but sometimes there’s more mature plot lines. Honestly, I was skeptical at first but I’ve found some of it to be pretty good. It’s much better than the trash we have in Anglo world. Of course, obsessing over little anime girls would be retarded but there’s nothing wrong with enjoying this stuff sometimes.

[Anonymous No.15423261]

>>15422818
>It’s pretty close to YA fiction but sometimes there’s more mature plot lines