- Edited
Gothic_Temptation They did, still a big endeavor. You have translated 50 chapters ahead of time so that you can maintain a consistent release pace. Suddenly, you realize that terms were translated wrongly. You have to go back to all the 50 chapters, edit them one by one. This is additional work that a new book does not have. Unless the translator loves the book so much that he's willing to put in the effort, all you get are mercenaries who will translate, but not put too much effort into consistency.
I'll give you an example. Doing a search and replace in whatever document format you have, replacing it on Inkstone; all this takes about 1 minute per chapter, considering browser loading speeds, etc. Now, there's 50 chapters (or more). Just doing one search and replace for ONE term takes you 50 minutes. Then when you realize there's ANOTHER term you made a mistake, you have to do the same thing. This time, there might be a 100 chapters for you to go back and check. You can see how as the number of chapters increase, the amount of time taken to maintain is crazy. And this time can be put to translating one chapter already, earning them money; instead of going back to maintain the consistency.
You have to understand that those novels that were picked up again were popular ones. The ones that are unpopular just die, coz why would anyone pick up something unpopular (especially if they are earning ad revenue from it).
It's a problem that translators have. They simply do not want to pick up 'spoiled goods'. Even RWX from WW says this with respect to HJC's translation:
Translating is like raising a baby, while taking over someone else's translation is like raising a stepchild; you are locked into using previous terms, and many other things you might not like. There are many translators who are disinterested in taking on another person's translation, especially this close to the end.
P.S. Even WW had problems maintaining consistency of terms.