What are legal options to buy (translated) light novels ?
 

I stress that point out : LEGAL.

I knew Tomopop translated a couple of Scrapped Princess LN (pleasant read), and that Yen Press is publishing stuff like Spice and Wolf and SAO, as well as Index (in november, quite excited for it)

But are there, say, British editors ? Or any American editors with large catalogs ? Or Kindle/EBOOK/stuff like that ?

(I read English and French. France is unfortunately quite adverse to the LN, the first one that will be published will be SAO, and that will the work of an house that otherwise hardcore yaoi manga. Glorious)

Yen press is the only publisher I can think of

Since somebody did a thread, I will ask a question myself here, are there any people here buying lightnovel on kindle? More accurately I would like to know if it's possible to buy an ebook ( from amazon jp) on a european kindle. Or do I need to get a japanese kindle ?

Thanks in advance.

There are light novels on Amazon.JP kindle, that's for sure, but I can't legally buy British or French kindle books on Canadian accounts, so I would say chances are slim.

Viz has their Haika Soru imprint for sci-fi novels, light and otherwise. Most notably they did All You Need Is Kill, AKA The Edge of Tomorrow, and Project Itoh's novels which are getting anime films next year.

Vertical mainly focuses on regular novels, but they did the first five volumes of the Guin Saga, and they have an Attack on Titan novel coming out soon.

Dark Horse put out two Dirty Pair novels and some of Kikuchi novels.

Digital Manga has likewise done some Kikuchi, and most recently Aria of the Scarlet Ammo.

Seven Seas has abandoned light novels, and most of what they did publish is out of print, but I think you cans till find their volumes of Kikuchi (notice a pattern here) and Strawberry Panic.

Del Rey did two volumes of Nisioisin's Zaregoto, an anthology called Faust, and, of all things, a Genshiken spin-off before they got out of the LN business.

And of course Tokyo Pop published tons of light novels, all of which are out of print and going for crazy prices on Amazon, but some of their titles are worth tracking down, most notably Welcome to the NHK and Otsuichi's Goth.

There was also a publisher I've never heard of that published the Onegai Twins novelizations. I only know they exist because I found them on The Right Stuf's clearance page for two bucks. :heh:

Are you talking about Japanese ebooks?
Aside from kindle, there are other options like kinoppy and bookwalker (which has the largest selection of light novels as it's owned Kadokawa themselves). If you own an android device, you can install bookwalker app via direct apk installation method from bookwalker's website (since it's not in play outside of Japan). It's possible to purchase ebooks outside of Japan using paypal as your method of payment, unless the titles are region restricted, such as the manga Isshuukan Friends, in which case you would need a Japanese vpn.

Though there are some Dengeki titles which may not be available or may not be at the latest volume yet. As far as I know, pretty much all Fujimi titles are available, and released on same day as hardcopy.

I'm on almost all-ebook now for all my new purchases (including manga if it's available) since last year due to space concerns in my home :heh: But I only use bookwalker so I don't know about kindle.

EDIT: on another note, like what BaronNoir said, I do remember that you can't buy cross-border books for kindle. There are workarounds for this, though Amazon has the right to perm-ban you and revoke your rights to all your existing purchases if you get caught.

Yes talking about japanese ebook, I will soon end V3 of saijaku muhai no bahamut and now after 3-4 years of self learning, it seems i can finally read and understand a light novel but I overly prefer a digital version than a material version.

I will watch bookwalker when I return home, but if what you say is true I can buy ebook from this app even though I do not live in japan? If that's the case may you allow me to create a religion with you as the main god ?

On a side note, what is direct apk installation, I searched a bit but I do not understand the concept behind it, I simply can't DL bookwalker from play store ? (android)

just download kindle android from internet -> than start reading it

for now there is no real security unlike usa kindle where you can't even see books without proxy....

(though you might need to create fake address + use japanese ip when you buy if you use japanese country for your account)

I checked again. Yeah I think you can find bookwalker on Play. Can't remember how I did it last time lol (though I have 2 google accounts linked to same phone and can access both local and Japanese playstore).
Except for Mahouka and Alderamin and Golden Time, I have bought every LN and manga I'm reading since early last year without any issue through paypal. The only region restricted series I bought recently was Isshuukan Friends. And it has an 日本限定 label on it. Though it can be overcome with a Japanese vpn service but that will be off-topic here so you can ask me privately if needed. In short yeah, you can buy any series without Japan-restricted label but only by using paypal. At least for now that's how Bookwalker works.

I'd like to point out that they have two different website URLs....so before downloading the app u should make an account first.

English website: https://global.bookwalker.jp/
Japanese website: https://bookwalker.jp

both shopping carts are connected to eachother and you can switch to English language even on the Japanese website. GL!