I’m considering joining this bookclub. I usually prefer physical books, but what would the cost difference be between shipping a book to the United States vs. just buying a digital copy? I don’t know enough Japanese to get a clear answer on the websites… Completely new to this, any advice would be appreciated, thanks!
2 Likes
I bought mine from amazon.co.jp - the shipping was around $13, and the price of the book was about $9 which is the same price as the ebook on BookLive. So you’re paying quite a bit more for the physical book than the ebook for the shipping.
Depending on where you’re located, there are a couple of Japanese bookstores in the US where you could also look for book. I have a https://www.bookoffusa.com/ near me and I have found some of the bookclub books here and saved myself shipping.
3 Likes
Thank you so much for the info! I will probably order a physical book this time, and switch to ebooks if this becomes a regular expense. Follow up question, does amazon.co.jp accept USA Visa? If not, what ways have you found that work to purchase the books?
It does and it asks you which currency you want to use when it detects a US card. Also I do use my credit card that I know doesn’t charge international fees just in case it’s going to show up as an international charge. For amazon.co.jp you’ll need to make another account, and you can set your language to english if you want.
4 Likes
ありがとうございます！
Hi, I’m also thinking about joining this bookclub and I prefer paper books.
Do you know if it is possible to start an Amazon Prime account in the Japanese website and get free shipping to your country? Or does it only work for addresses inside Japan?
1 Like
Prime shipping is, from what I understand, always domestic online. Amazon JP certainly is
1 Like
Hm, I just read the terms of conditions of Amazon Prime Japan and unfortunately, the answer is no. It would be too good if it was possible 
Gonna have to pay a lot in shipping 
Thanks. Poor Okinawa though…
Poor 沖縄本島 indeed!
Poor us too, haha.
It’s JPY 900 for the book for me and JPY 1,525 for shipping.
So something like £13 for shipping and £5 for the book 
Then again, when I buy parts from aliexpress, it usually works out like that, haha
1 Like
When I saw the shipping was more than the book I just said “ok, I’ll just add another book” and just threw in another one from my list lol.
3 Likes
You can look here for some advice on buying books in Japanese.
5 Likes
I did that too 
I’m buying 3.
3 Likes
I’ll grab my copy now!
3 Likes
I’ll order my copy from Kinokuniya.
3 Likes
I’ve closed the start date poll - it was a unanimous vote for November 7th!
7 Likes
I’m very much a beginner, but I enjoy reading, so I would like to start as soon as possible.
Between this and big brother rental, which one do you think it would be easier to start with?
1 Like
I’ve only taken a quick look at the biography, but I’d consider レンタルおにいちゃん to be the easier of the two to start of with. You have more context from the panels, it’s a tad lighter on text and the text is more conversational, so you might be able to recognize more words without having to look them up. You’d also have the benefit of the bookclub to ask questions already, seeing as this one only starts november 7th 
1 Like
@anon3564849 yeah I think it is a good idea. I caught up rental bro in few days but it is not so easy like you may think. Current 5th-week pages are murderous at least for my level heh. I also will go with the next two books mentioned. For example 10 minutes I have already bought with BookWalker and waiting for November :-).
1 Like
A VPN reroutes all of your network communication (browsers, mails, …) and is not limited to one browser. Even your WLAN will not be visible anymore as long as VPN is active (quite as if you were sitting in Japan or elsewhere).
2 Likes