TrueGodOfExp No, you still need to get Webnovel permission, so you have to apply to Webnovel to translate it. Take note, the quality still needs to be maintained.
All discontinued books are available for anyone to translate on a revenue-sharing scheme.
Rocketduh Astral Pet Store is in the Voting Pool already. The time it takes to enter a pool also depends on the translations. All trial books stop at 60. We only wait for a signal to continue before we continue translating. You can't expect them to build up a stockpile at a snap of the finger. A group needs to say okay, we can continue the book (they have the manpower to do it, e.g. the previously engaged translator is still around, available to work on it). This can take a few working days.
KoraL Atlas Studios is doing it for a few books. They were dropped, but we decided to continue it under revenue sharing. It's a risk, but we will have to take it.
For instance, my book, The Monk That Wanted To Renounce Asceticism, was also dropped. I chose to finish it under revenue-sharing. It probably earns me around a cent a chapter, so technically working for free, but I'm just doing it to complete books I picked.
Why does Webnovel even hold the license if they won't do anything with it?
TrueGodOfExp Many companies hold licenses and don't use it immediately. It is their intellectual property. How they use it is up to them. It might one day be used too (on the order of many years). Look at a lot of movies that were adapted. Just some random recent movies I selected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lovely_Bones_(film)
In May 2000, Film4 Productions acquired feature film rights to Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones,
Release date November 24, 2009
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_(2019_film)
In 2013, writer Anna Todd posted the first chapters of a fan fiction titled After on Wattpad.
In 2014, Paramount Pictures acquired the rights to adapt After for film.
Release date April 12, 2019
KoraL The decision to pick up dropped novels are made by respective translation groups. Picking up discontinued novels generally means you are taking a huge gamble on whether you can potentially make any money whatsoever. Some people do it in hope to earn extra, others do it because it's what they want to do.
As of right now, Exodus Tales only has Almighty Video Game Designer and Phoenix Destiny as part of this "passion" project.
That might look the same but really isn't. Movies acquire much more work and effort than translation/editing and can cost in the millions while taking years to produce. I'm not saying translating or editing isn't hard, but there's a big difference between making a movie and translating a novel.
I understand the point you're making, but it isn't exactly a good reason. All this really does is make people go to third parties and have it illegally translated if Webnovel won't do it.
I guess it doesn't matter though, I doubt anything will change.
TrueGodOfExp If they want to illegally translate, they might as well try to work with Webnovel.
CKtalon the problem is when webnovel don't want to gives an willing author a right to translate. (in webnovel.com) like its happend with "Thriller paradise" where a guy wanted to translate for passion only. maybe his english wasn't perfect but it wasnt mtl quality (there are translations worse than what he did ehem the sage that transended samsara ehem) yes its being translated right now...after 2 years without notice and if I didnt write this I wouldnt even know like probably 99% of ppl that readed it (its not lord of mysteries but at least it had stable 30 comment and 3M views the same number as "mages are too op" with only 60ish less chapters)
CKtalon Hey, this isn't related to this topic but is "What it's like Being A Vampire" going to be picked up? Does the stats show promise? If it does, awesome, if it doesn't, then whatever. At least I won't be as disappointed if I were to wait normally and see if it was chosen.
TrueGodOfExp Doesn't look promising unfortunately.
CKtalon UGH!
Truly, the trial read is becoming more and more useless. Three times, three whole times I've read a novel it wasn't picked. Now, perhaps its because those kinds of books aren't that popular, but at that point why bother holding the license for translation if they don't even do well? Might as well let other people waste the money on it.
It's getting to a point where I won't even bother to read trial reads anymore as the chances that the book I'm reading will get picked is slim and who knows when it might get translated again by some miracle. This is all so frustrating. :(
quality still needs to be maintained
That's funny when when webnovel itself has bunch of machine translation tier novel WHICH THEY STILL EXCEPT PEOPLE TO PAY COINS TO READ. Even that infinity genre book by the author who wrote Lord Of Mysteries which is NUMBER ONE both here and in Qidian, has an unreadable translation.
If I was the author and knew webnovel ruined my novel with no effort translation I would pull all my books from here.
So WN was created to bring what we refer to as "translated novels" to the west. The company is owned by QI who is then owned by one of the biggest companies in China called Tencent.
What everyone needs to understand is, WN was NOT created for originals and it was NOT created to promote "the best raw works". It is literally a subsidiary of a company that tells them what novels to translate at which times regardless of what anyone using the platform thinks.
For all we know, novels are chosen because QI has bigger plans for said "cliche" novels whether it is because they inked a really good deal with said author, or because they are putting money into it whether to create a manga, webtoon, etc. Like would you as a company rather push a novel you would make more income from no matter what, or take a risk on a different one just because a few thousand readers (who may or may not spend even a penny on it) claims that it is amazing and want more?
So with everyone upset that WN is not translating the novels they voted for, at least now you can understand the reasoning behind it. Now as far as originals aka Western created novels, were NEVER supposed to be on this platform. It is just that WN felt that instead of only being a literal "promotional platform for big brother", at least they could start to begin owning their own copyrights to an extent and to generate more income. Due to the traffic and readers the translated novels were bringing in, there was no reason not to allow originals to be uploaded to retain said audience similar to how YouTube rewards creators who have high retention rates.
Sure, it is awesome that even an indie author like me could use WN to build an audience and receive feedback, but it DOES NOT mean that the platform was created to cater to those like myself. It is literally a platform that found an additional revenue stream close enough to the original plans to work it all out.
So hey, I would just tell everyone to be grateful that every once in a while there is actually good content being translated, and that in down times, there are some really awesome original works you could try in the meantime. It is much better than nothing, AND even some translated novels technically could be read all the way through without spending a penny including many non premium originals. Like, I understand it can get annoying at times, but you are literally arguing with "free stuff" that is not complete garbage. :) -The Sleeping Tadpole
The new Qidian contract for authors boils down to "We own rights to your work basically forever, we will pay you pittance while using your intellectual property in any manner we feel like" Tencent basically turned Qidian into an intellectual property mill.
They also started restricting anything even remotely controversial content (because you can't exploit such IP in the form of movies, games etc..)
That is also true, but to be fair, there are many contracted novels that are not really that great to begin with while there are many that are basically a little boy's wet dream written on paper.
So as much as that is correct that they are just signing so many people who are making content for them to use however they wish (if non exclusive contract was not chosen), it still does not mean that it would be making them "a killing" in the future especially since even Amazon has over 1 million authors in their network at this point.
Still, as I mentioned, they are not really "spending any money" on the contracted novels, so a profit even a small one in an extra revenue stream really is not that bad. I do see it as maybe being a giant in the future though if they are able to continue poaching authors off of Wattpad and other potential platforms.
MotivatedSloth oooh then you kniw why did why that baton fantastical event got selected even when though it has least no. Of support?
It was not the novel readers pay for.
And why even though new novel have more readers supporting it but then suddenly an older book more then 1-2 months got selected? Even though they don't have that much reader paying for it?
@yaoyueyi Necro
No one is talking about the idea that op originally posted that to list every dropped novel with a base score of at least 3 and then every week people will vote for what novel to come back.
This should not only for trial dropped novels but also for previously more than 100 chapters translated novels which had been dropped recently.
This is a good idea, please let it be discussed over here about the feasibility of such system
