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Where can I find translated Japanese light novels?
I have dug around the net for a little while now, and other than direct purchase from Japan I am having trouble finding light novels. Specifically for several anime series I liked and want to read the originals for. Anyone know where I can find light novels in general for purchase or otherwise?
Sometimes translations simply don't exist. There's more than a few light novels that have never been, and likely never will be, professionally translated into English. Sometimes they are unofficial translations, and these vary in quality from being as good as any officially translated book you've ever read, to being marginally better than Google Translate.
If they are legally translated, your best options would be Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or any other big bookstores. Something like bookshop.org also might be useful, but you generally just want to look for the biggest stores you can find because those are more likely to have any given product in stock. Bookwalker.jp doesn't sell physical books, but they do have a huge catalogue of translated Japanese e-books, both light novels and manga.
If they are not legally translated, then your best bet is typing 'series name fan translation' into google, and going from there. There's no one website people use for unofficial translations, so you generally just want to find a reddit page or other forum discussing it. And if they aren't translated at all then you can usually find it mentioned on those kinds of forums too.
If you have some specific names then I can give you more specific answers.
I was specifically looking for Overlord and How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom
Both of those are on Barnes and Noble, and I assume they're also available on the other sites I've mentioned like Amazon and Bookwalker.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/overlord-vol-1-kugane-maruyama/1123395652
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/how-a-realist-hero-rebuilt-the-kingdom-dojyomaru/1127581921
The main translators are j-novel, seven seas, and yen press. You can buy directly from j-novel without DRM, but otherwise all three publish their work on the normal channels (e.g Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo). J-novel is mostly digital only, the other two do digital and physical. Just got to kobo or amazon and search for a series.
Past that, you're going to have to go to novelupdates, which is the main aggregator for unofficial translations, and hope for the best.
You’ll likely be better off reading the spoilers on novelupdates, it’s often much more cohesive than the machine translations.
J-Novel Club publishes lots of light novels (and manga) in English (Ascendance of a Bookworm, In Another World With My Smartphone, etc) and they offer DRM-free ebooks direct on their site. They also offer a "streaming" subscription service for pre-publications and ebook rental.
Generally, I search for a series on Novel Updates. That site will have links to the fan translations. The site also catalogs the original Japanese publisher(s) and official English publisher so it's easy to search for the original or English release if you're so inclined.
Kodansha actually does this with their properties. You can find some in stores but most of them are digital only via their bookwalker app.
Just to add onto the other options and since I haven't seen it mentioned yet, Kinokuniya often has English light novels available as well.