Gothic_Temptation 17k and Zongheng uses the same system in China. If and when they expand overseas, we shall see if they will try something new. It would be interesting to see different business models.

Why it's so expensive is because of demand and supply. It was optimized based on the D-S curve based on what patrons are willing to pay on Patreon (which is way more expensive).

They can still continue for another 2-3 years with the old contracts they signed with the publishers. It's still a question if the publishers will create their own sites and bypass WW and Volare, considering the recent government initiative. Volare signed with an author of a very old work who happens to own the copyrights to the translations. That can still work, but that will be in the minority.

For instance, China Literature (Webnovel's parent company) has 90% of all Chinese web authors under them. The remaining 10% are with the other publishers. Yes, you will be able to find a few authors, who you can sign directly with, but whether their works will be popular is another question.

I agree with you that the prices are high, and I suspect that there will be ways to make it cheaper in the future.

    bachingchung That's just being irresponsible and unreasonable right. Especially if they go to pickup other novels. They should be punishable by guillotine (job offer cut off)

        5 days later

        Gothic_Temptation you definitely don't know how copyrights work. So just shut up coz' you're only embarassing yourself. 10 seconds is all you need to copystrike a youtuber and get all their earnings. Do you really think a translator could do what they want with just by measly putting the author's name in their translations?

            bachingchung
            I know about copy right did you even read what i said?!?!
            As i said its great that illegal translations are dead but still doesnt mean that the old system is flawed it could easily be solved with a couple of contacts as what Volare and WW are doing 🤦🏾‍♂️

                CKtalon My main problem is lack of communication when a book gets dropped, can webnovel not past an announcement in place of a chapter on those novels saying the translation is on hiatus or something

                  Gothic_Temptation those aren't just individuals but companies. Do you think a freelance translaror could afford an author's fee? If they could they wouldn't sign with WW or WN to begin with.

                      18 days later

                      CKtalon So it seems that there are two reasons why dropped novels aren't picked up:

                      1. It's not popular enough, (according to WN?)
                      2. New TL are getting flamed because of the unfamiliar terms used by old TL, since a new TL generally won't read all previous chapters (because it wastes time for which they're not paid)

                      Since WN knows this why they don't try to improve their own system/model in order to give new TL easier time?
                      This should attract more new translators, readers and editors.

                      WN is changing the old gray era but you don't change this, the most problematic issue. When someone say those, you do the same, and don't do anything about it.

                      There're probably a lot of ways for improvements, such as
                      1. Introduce a voting system for all dropped novels, where each user can only vote once for only one novel. This should refresh every XX days to reflect if novel is still popular.
                      With this a new TL will easier choose a dropped novel.
                      2.
                      A lot of ways, one may be related to another:
                      - Introduce a glossary template, which should include all unfamiliar keywords/terms, and especially those which aren't in Eng dictionary, and they're grouped properly, such as:
                      all names, power levels, skills, abilities, places, special items, ... They should also have a RAW name beside terms.
                      - Each translator is required to fill this glossary during TL
                      - Readers may fill up this glossary, and earn free SS when ED/TL approves
                      - Introduce search/replace function for multiple chapters so a new TL can easily replace all old terms with one action
                      - Since a new TL may have needs to use its own terms, system should be able to automatically replace all terms between multiple glossaries
                      (because a new TL will have it's own glossary based on previous glossary and depending on TL choice it will automatically replace his terms with old terms or all terms in all released chapters with new ones)
                      - At least changes within glossary should be visible to readers when TL changes terms you should be notified by system automatically before reading new chapter.

                          Uik There are glossaries. What happens if the person who was working on it suddenly disappeared? We are required to maintain glossaries, but glossaries constantly change.

                          You would be surprised how unpopular those dropped novels are.

                              CKtalon I mean a Glossary build deeply within System, for example
                              first translator was using term #1

                              RAW #1: 金丹
                              TL1 #1 term num XXXX 01: Golden Pellet
                              TL1 #1 term num XXXX 02: Golden Pellets

                              a newer translator is using
                              TL2 #1 term num XXXX 01: Gold Core
                              TL2 #1 term num XXXX 02: Gold Cores

                              Now, the new TL2 is translating as he likes, and when he wants to replace his own terms with old ones for consistency,
                              in this case a term "TL2 #1 term num XXXX XX" and all their associative terms are all automatically replaced with terms with previous TL1 #1.

                              Of course this is very simple example, one term has only two derivable keywords, for complicated terms there may be tens or hundreds of them. There're bound to forget include all so System could do a partial match from a Glossary to constantly notify the TL during writing.
                              maybe like this, to color terms differently

                              • already included Y/N
                              • term may be a associative match from included term num XXXX Y/N
                              • this is a suggested term which needs to be included into glossary Y/N
                              • ....

                              Not only because of the dropped novels, but TL are bound to change/temporary unable translate during the novel life cycle so there is definitely a need for something in order to keep consistency.

                                  The best example is the translation of Otherworldly Evil Monarch latest few chapters. The new translator even attempt to change the title in the translation! "Xie Jun's most feared assassination method has finally been revealed!" from chapter 580. Honestly "Xie Jun" should not have even appear in the translation. "Otherworldly Xie Jun" anyone?

                                    CKtalon No offense but What kind of image are you sending oversea ? Most of the stories here have no depth... Don't get me wrong I spend ton of time reading your lightnovels but compared to worldwide authors, Chinese one do not even get close to them.

                                        CKtalon Way of the devil was ranked 30 with a release rate of 5 per week lol....

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