J-Novel Club

Dex-chan lover
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
762
The hell
Here's a summary of how the site works, from my understanding:

The first chapter of every series is free for everyone, and only the chapters from the most recent volume can be read by members without paying extra. After the volume is quality checked and released ("minimum of 4-5 weeks, and over two months for the first parts in each volume"), the chapters expire and you need to purchase the whole volume ($8.99 from a couple series I checked) to read it, even if you have a membership. All of the expired chapters in a series are sometimes opened up for a limited time for catch-ups, presumably only for members.

Payments are made using coins, which have a one-to-one conversion with cents and don't expire. They can be bought with a 5% discount for a basic membership ($4.95/m, $54/y for basic), or 15% plus a free 699 coins a month for a premium membership ($10.95/m, $120/y). Chapters can be rented (cringe) for 72 hours for what seems like 30 coins each, but that does count toward buying the volume at least. I've also found some series where there's no option to rent and you have to buy the whole volume at once, though. If you buy their "premium" ebook, you get online access to the chapters regardless of membership, as well as an epub file you can do what you like with, but they won't let you download them anymore if they lose the rights.

Honestly I'm not sure what to make of it. I like that they're offering a membership rather than just some fixed per-chapter rate, but I don't like the chapter renting and only being able to read a few recent chapters for a limited time. I feel like if they're already charging a monthly fee it's kind of dumb to have to rent older chapters on top of that. I have no reason to get a membership right now since they're far behind the scanlations on most of the series I care about, but I might get a basic membership once they catch up assuming translation quality and speed are decent. I don't buy ebooks nor do I plan on renting any chapters so the premium membership makes no sense to me, but I guess if you picture yourself buying a lot of coins it could be worth it. I think it has the potential to be a good deal if they pick up enough series and maybe ease up on the renting thing.
So.. You don't own a copy of the manga volume at all? No physical copy?
 

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