J-Novel Club LLC is pleased to announce its entry into an ongoing sales and distribution agreement with Hachette Book Group via a new partnership with Yen Press for J-Novel Club’s physical book catalog. Beginning July 1, 2024, all J-Novel Club frontlist and backlist titles will be distributed by Hachette in North America. International sales will be handled by Diamond Book Distributors.
What does this mean for current branding?
While all books will be listed for solicitation under Yen Press’s “JNC” imprint and appear in Edelweiss as Yen Press/JNC, on-book branding for titles produced directly by J-Novel Club will continue to feature the full J-Novel Club and J-Novel Heart logos. Titles produced by Yen Press under the “JNC” imprint will continue to use the simplified JNC logo.
How does this affect stock and inventory?
Retailers globally can continue ordering all J-Novel Club titles – including all June 2024 new releases – through 30 June 2024, after which inventory will be migrated to Hachette’s warehouses. This may lead to delays in order fulfillment for both retailers and customers while the transport and ingestion of catalog titles continues. July 2024’s new releases are already registered with Hachette Book Group and are available for preorder.
Why don’t I see new volumes out as far as before?
J-Novel Club has switched to a system of rolling solicitations. Each month, new volumes in production will be solicited for retail. This allows us to more flexibly schedule new releases, as well as allowing us to provide increasingly accurate metadata such as page numbers.
How does this affect J-Novel Club’s digital offerings?
This arrangement is only for print editions in English and has no impact on J-Novel Club’s digital offerings.
Source: Press Release
