I just finished reading a post over at Mecha Mecha Media and he got me thinking seriously on something I’ve been touching on for a while now.

What is the place for light novels in the west?

I’ve only recently found light novels, I think it’s about a year since I read my first one, and even then I didn’t even know it was a light novel >.<

Seven Seas Entertainment claim that the west isn’t ready for light novels, and have thus only released a few titles, holding the cream of their titles until the market is supposedly ready for them.

Tokyopop have been dropping light novels by the bucket full because of lack of sales, and yet Dark Horse and a few other publishers are finding the reverse is true, that they can’t print enough to keep the volumes on the shelves.

Both sides of the argument can’t be true can they?

For me I see several problems, first is the name they’re given over here, Light Novels, next we have the publishing format, and finally the marketing.

First, lets look at the marketing. It wasn’t until recently that I learnt what light novels are, and that was because a friend pointed out that a novel I was writing a review for was originally a light novel. After this I started looking for others, and buying them by the bucket, and was surprised at how little advertising their is.

For anything to be successful, whether it’s a light novel, manga, anime, movie or normal book, it has to be promoted and marketed properly. Light Novels have never really been marketed, and in fact it’s only recently that I’ve seen a few adds by Dark Horse for their Vamp D series

You can’t expect something to sell, if only a limited few know of it’s release.

Publishing format is probably the biggest hurdle, light novels are all over the place. Tokyopop have two different sized light novels, Dark Horse have a different size, and Seven Seas have yet another size format.

This is part of the problem I think, light novels need to be of a standard uniform size, especially if you want to attract a larger audience from across the demographic board. Some of the novels are the same size of normal novels, and appeal to more people, others are the size of kids books, and thus labelled as kids books. By giving them a uniform size of a normal novel, you take away the misconception.

This would be a problem for some of titles that are in short volumes, to me the answer is simple, put two volumes in one. Make the size the same as say the Dark Horse Vampire D novels, and you’d have a good solid base to work from.

Finally we have the name ‘light novel’ it sounds flunky, even to me. To me, when I first heard the term I thought of those kids books I used to read that were published as ‘light children’s stories’. That’s a huge hurdle for them to get over in the UK market. When people here light novel they immediately think of kids stories, so a lot of potential buyers won’t buy.

One of the terms being tossed around as a replacement term is J-Pulp, for me this is a bad idea. When I hear J-Pulp I think of those weird pulp fiction magazines I used to see as a teen, full of cheesy sci-fi and fantasy short stories. Tokyopop learnt this the hard way when they launched their pulp line up, and it bombed. Perhaps they should of done some better research!!

For me, I like to keep things simple, so call them J-Novels. It’s nice, simple and says everything it needs to. Why try and over complicate it by adding unnecessary things, or to change the meaning.

One of the things John mentions in his post:

At a recent BBQ a friend of mine suggested that Americans aren’t commuters in the same way Japanese are, and therefore the appeal of a “light novel” (for reading on the bus or train to pass the time) might be higher in a country where fewer people drive themselves to work or school. I think there might be something to this idea. This might be one of the reasons they are more popular in Japan, as the driving age is 18, and far fewer young people drive in Japan compared to the US

I can understand his thought train on this, but I’m not sure that’s all there is to it. Japan does have a high commuter ratio, but I’ve not seen any sort of comparison so it’s hard to say if that’s the sole reason, however I doubt it is. Both the UK and the US have a high yob culture ratio, where kids ranging from eight or nine upto eighteen or so hang around in gangs, fighting, drinking, and generally being yobs.

Novels in general are a low uptake in the west because of this. Again I’ve not seen stats, so I can’t definitely point the finger, but I personally think that the yob culture the west is in at the minute is more at fault than a lower commuter ratio.

The other area he expressed was the translation and smooth read, and this is something I agree on. Manga is easier to translate than novels, and doing a novel translation is always going to be difficult. However it’s not something that should be rushed through, but rather taken a longer time to get right. Otherwise you end up with bad releases of popular titles that cause fans to stop buying.

However light novels are in a unique position to bridge the gap between popular fiction and manga. Rather than targeting the release solely at the anime and manga fanbase, they should instead be targeting the wider fan base of fantasy and sci-fi novel fans.

Like John I had an encounter recently with a chap who was reading a Vampire D novel, and had never heard of either the manga or the anime versions. Though after we talked for a while (well, more like 3 hours lol) he was more interested in exploring both the anime and manga versions.

One of the key points he mentioned was that when he bought the novel, and he has them all at the moment, he thought he was reading a series like Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, as in an ongoing fantasy novel. While he he was aware it originated from Japan after reading the authors comments, he just assumed it was a normal fantasy novel over there as well, he’d never even heard of the term ‘light-novel’ till I mentioned it.

the reason he believed it was just a normal novel, was the format Dark Horse use in their light novels. While they keep the images intact, they have the novels themselves in standard novel book format. Also, I was surprised to find 7 of the 10 current volumes in stock in a local book shop, I asked the manager and he also though they were just standard novels, just of the fantasy/horror genre

The normal fantasy and sci-fi demographic is huge, and I mean huge. Just look at the number of novels printed every year and the market is still no where near saturation point.

Several companies have claimed the west isn’t ready for light novels, but this is only true if you’re only targeting anime and manga fans. Open the process and standardise it, and do a proper job on the translations; and you’d be surprised how many none manga and anime fans could be picked up. Over time, as they learn of the cross over between manga and light novel, some would pick up the manga, and thus increase the manga market.

Even in it’s current state the market is no where near saturation, in fact the fans want more. The problem here is that publishers aren’t allowing the titles a chance to breath an attract a fan base. Scrapped Princess for example was cancelled after just three volumes. I only found this series a few months ago, after it had already been cancelled. This isn’t the only series they scrapped, in fact a lot of their light novels were cancelled or put on hold.

How can you expect to attract new fans to new series, when they’re afraid to buy them in case they’re scrapped part way through the series?

You need to take a risk, and gamble on the fans coming later as they learn the past is not repeating, and the series isn’t being scrapped part way through. This is especially true given the state of the economy at the moment. Fans are even less likely to take a gamble on a publisher with a long line of cancellations behind them. Several of Tokyopop’s light novel cancellations were met with outrage in the fan base, and a lot of fans seemed to have abandoned Tokyopop all together on the light novel front.

Is the west ready for light novels? To be honest I don’t think we’re ever ready for change, all the big changes were perpetrated by a few who gambled and succeeded. Light Novels are the same, we may not be ready, so it’s upto the publishers to make us ready through grooming and subtle changes, marketing and publicity. Yes it’s going to be expensive in the short term, which is why I can only see it working with a company like Del Rey, Dark Horse or Yen Press, who either have a larger publishing company such as Random House behind them, or a huge wallet with the cash to absorb the initial costs.

In the long term though I think it would pay off, as more and more people got into the light novels the initial costs would be recouped. This isn’t a few months, or few years time frame though. I see this as being the long term, as in five to ten years. As the economy stands, I don’t see any company making that gamble sadly, and that’s a shame because I think this is the best time to take that risk, when others are cutting back and running scared.