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BlueCastle

Not sure if i'm reading your comment correctly, but he's only dropping/discontinuing WSSTH (quitting QI at the same time). In either case of TE and WSSTH, he has expressed permission to translate the english version of the novel by the copyright owner. Main difference is that he has ownership of the english translation of TE versus signing over his translation to QI (for WSSTH). No one is getting cheated in this case, so i have no clue with it was brought up for this case.

WSSTH isn't leaving QI. QI is probably in the process of finding a replacement translator for the novel. There are several problems that QI is probably going to face. First, QI is already trying to find replacement translators for other series (but WSSTH probably will get priority due to popularity). Second, QI needs to find a find a translator of equal or greater quality or else people are going to complain. Finally, it's going to take time for translation to resume due to new translator getting used to the terms/names (800+ chaps) if you expect the new translator to do a decent job.

KurazyTolanzuraytor Thank you. The allure of money is strong, but having principles pays more in the long run. I'm glad someone woke up from this nightmare and decided to rebel against these tyrants. Been reading your translation at WW, i really hope it will pick up speed now that you have more time on your plate.

Now you can earn much more money with WW patreon system. So i hope your second webnovel is something unique and interesting. A word of advice, if you want more readers and patreons, you should pick some game novel with lots of chicks and face slapping, the kids love it and its easy money. Good luck mate! Hope to see more of your work, i just hope the quality is better than the last few wssth chapters...

KurazyTolanzuraytor
Good luck.
I respect your decision and there is nothing wrong with it. I will surely read TE when I get time. Thanks for your work (even though I do not like WSSTH as its too cliche but I read most of it).

I wouldn't have written what's below if I did not see people above glorifying your action. Honestly what you wrote above makes me lose many browny points towards you. There is nothing to glorify you or there is nothing to criticize you. Just can't stay silent after seeing this.

KurazyTolanzuraytor I want to be the owner of my words and retain the copyright of my translations. I no longer feel that it is worth it to exchange my work for the fixed pay Qidian has promised.

Do you know what my subconscious told me after reading this?
Since QI took out patreon system and adapted the SS system and you are not getting any bonus money. (Not sure how much money you were making from WSSTH patreon, but that's what the above sentence made me feel.)

KurazyTolanzuraytor I’d always wanted to translate but never had the patience, especially if I had to start from forums while hoping to be recognized. (We all know which forums I’m talking about :/) Then one fine day, I found webnovel.com, a website which would recruit people like me – people with no experience - for a steady wage. I grabbed the opportunity and from that day onwards, translating became my full-time job.

So, you want to get into WW from the beginning, but you did not want to translate for nothing to get in. Then webnovel.com came in and you got in. QI helped you when you were unemployed and made translating your full-time job. (For an unemployed person, this should be good news.)
So, they took you in with your subpar quality and gave you a chance.

KurazyTolanzuraytor Fast-forward a few months, after many chapters (which I feel are quite shitty when I look back at them now), I was getting better and an opportunity presented itself, allowing me to apply directly to WW. It was also around this time that I started to value my work more than the fixed pay.

So, you used QI to get better.
You improved while getting paid. After you improved, you applied to WW where there are thousands of patreons and you get ad revenue as well.

KurazyTolanzuraytor I’d rather take my chances, rely on the heartfelt support of everyone, and retain the rights to my hard work than give it away for a steady pay-cheque.

Of course, you have to because you decided to do so.

KurazyTolanzuraytor I don’t see eye to eye with the SS payout system, and it’s no longer something that’s worth my time because I won’t be able to retain the rights to my work.

Now that you think you have improved, you could be disappointed to not a get a raise with your skills. The new SS system did not give any benefit to you but rather took out your patreon income.

KurazyTolanzuraytor Final note to everyone and especially readers of WSSTH, let me shamelessly introduce you to Talisman Emperor and look forward to my new 2nd novel

Since you got the time to work on a 2nd novel, the 2 identities is not a big deal, you could work on both. Just that you did not like the copyright part or pay of QI. Nothing wrong with that.

As usual an analogy.
You had hots for a girl but you didn't have the appeal to ask her out.
Then there came a girl who accepted you despite your shitty looks and bad skills. She provided you steady things and helped you stand on your own and made you appealing to others. But she had a condition, you have to be a passive partner where she makes decisions for you. You were fine with it initially and after you gained your appeal and improved your skills, you could not stand being a passive partner. You went up to the other girl you had the crush on and started double playing. (Nothing wrong with that. I want people to work on both WW and QI lol)
Once you get experienced, you ditched the first girl and started BITCHING about how she wanted a passive partner, not an equal partner. (I am exaggerating lol).

There is nothing wrong with ditching, just STOP BITCHING about that after the help you received from them.

Disclaimer: Bro. I got nothing personal against you. I have received nothing from QI and I usually criticize them. Just want to let you know how bad what you wrote above sounded to me. I do not know any details behind your decision, so I am just exaggerating and making whatever written above.

Just give QI thanks and end it well.

KingBiBiK (Not sure how much money you were making from WSSTH patreon, but that's what the above sentence made me feel.)

WSSTH patreon was bringing in several thousand every month. QI cut that to zero!

It's also worth noting that translators get $0 of Premium revenue unless they restructure their contracts. It's why translators are bailing on QI (WSSTH & Swallowed Star TL's are gone, who will be next?)

KingBiBiK So, you used QI to get better.
You improved while getting paid. After you improved, you applied to WW where there are thousands of patreons and you get ad revenue as well.

Again, you are out of line to an extent.

A. WSSTH has been one of the most prolific novels translated on QI. It's one of best-translated series. Nothing ever seems MTL'd nor is the editing ever subpar. Sure there might be proofreading errors occasionally but that's it.

Describing it as sub par is foolish.

Now whether the story is good, that's all subjective so I leave that one be.

B. Talisman Emperor has been an ongoing translation on WW since September of last year. 378 Chapters on top of the 800+ WSSTH chapters here on QI is pretty impressive.

KingBiBiK you also completely ignore the fact that Kurazy was generous enough to share his Glossary with QI something that is not required. That will help ensure that there is no interruption in the series between translators.

To be honest, it's kinda of ludicrous that you are giving a translator crap because they decided not to continue translating a novel after the publisher(QI) decided to take thousands of dollars from them PER MONTH???

KingBiBiK
Except the girl doesn't care. :)
I didn't want to release this, but here's a timeline of what happened today.

I told Yuren(The Boss of Webnovel) that I wanted to quit at 4.09p.m. GMT+8
Sunny came and sent me a message instead at 4.28
I didn't like how unprofessionally he was handling this by sending Sunny instead of talking to me directly, so I decided to just go ahead with my post at 4.30
EFT's boss aka DAN told me he got the novel at 5pm
Yuren comes asking what happened n if i need help at 6.20
Then says oh I saw your post at 6.48

Also, I pretty much admitted that I'm not happy with the pay now because it's not worth my copyright. Which also implies I was fine with it while I was able to post on Patreon.

SS doesn't pay a cent to any TL because there is no premium contract to convert to right now.

Yes, I always liked WW, and I was lazy. I'm a gamer, I had to compare between giving up hours of gaming time vs something that might not work out, so yes I didn't bother to try.

Honestly, the main reason I even decided and had the feeling that I should approach WW was because I didn't feel Qidian would be able to run through the thousands and millions it does for all the novels for long. Frankly, it wasn't earning anything while spending a ton to build itself up. I felt their extremely high expenditure on things like very bad mtl-ish translations and people like CK would sooner or later cause their venture to be unprofitable. I secured a backup plan which turned out to be a wise decision.

Final note, yes I'm trying to end it well which is why I gave up the glossary which benefits both QI and all the readers.

KurazyTolanzuraytor

KurazyTolanzuraytor Except the girl doesn't care. :)

You got that right lol.
The girl does not care about a LOT of things.

Looks like I nailed it except exaggerating it a bit, lol. There is nothing wrong with what you did and if I was in your shoes, I would have done the same.
Unless they implement original authors successfully and earn a profit from it, I see no bright future at the moment.

Yea, WW has high-quality standards which makes it elite and hard to get in even as a translator, not to mention an Original author.
But the offer of steady pay for a beginner itself is alluring. It did increase the translation rate of each novel for good or bad (quality dropped for most).

As for QI, there is a lot negative trend going on, some with base and some unnecessary. I just did not like how people started using this to start bashing QI (which is kinda unnecessary). You signed up knowing you won't get rights and you quit when you felt you deserve better. Period.
Hope you understand.

I thought it wasn't a fixed pay anymore with SS? I thought you got a share of that no?

If not, it's certainly not worth it, SS is a ripoff as a currency aswell.

Mute It has not switched to royalties yet and is still a fixed pay though there is an inclination to shift towards that soon. He just lost patience waiting for that to happen. In my opinion, it's KurazyTolanzuraytor loss and EFT's gain.

Besides, one should make a short time/monetary investment to wait to see if Premium actually works out before switching fully to a royalty contract (giving up guaranteed fixed pay in the process). Since he was unwilling to risk that short 2-3 month investment, it's really his loss.

Besides Sunny is the person in charge of translators/editors, so it is in her job scope to handle @KurazyTolanzuraytor's matter, not Yuren.

CKtalon ¯_(ツ)_/¯

CKtalon Hmm, having so many novels might be becoming a burden because of the fixed pay. After all, people with interest in reading these kind of novels are a limited resource. At some point, instead of attracting more people, it will instead start thinning the herd for each novel. People can only read so many novels with the limited time they have...

KurazyTolanzuraytor Hey Josh, I wish you the best of luck in your further projects. To clarify all your concerns first, Sunny is the right person since she handles all translator and editor relationships, instead of Yuren. I don't see any unprofessional practices in this case, frankly.

Secondly, according to your comments, both Sunny and Yuren replied you in few hours. I believe all of them showed you due respect. It's quite impossible to demand an instant response.

Thirdly, all the details were laid out in your initial agreement, nothing was hidden or violated from our side. In addition, the advanced chapters (Patreon) were bonus money for all translators who work for QI until the particular work joins the Premium program. This is not a new rule that you were never informed initially. All QI TLs know this rule clearly from the very beginning. Don't forget that you agreed to that initially.

Fourthly, translators need money, and looking for better offers is 100% okay and understandable. You are always free to quit. However, in a professional setting, I believe you should have informed us earlier, like 7 days in advance. Oh, if you check the contract, you will see a clause that requires the translator to provide 30 days notice if the translator decides to quit, and you initially agreed to this too. Unfortunately, in your case, you did not even give us an entire day to prepare. I would say this is rather unprofessional. Despite such acts, we still wished you good luck in our personal chats, right? None of us blamed you or said anything nasty. I'm really disappointed in what you posted in this thread.

Last but not least, don't forget we did not get a single cent from "your advanced chapters" from Patreon until we released Premium and enforced not having advanced chapters on another platform. You had received almost a year's worth of bonus money, which you shared nothing with either of us - the copyrght owner, or the author. Premium is the system that allows authors, translators and us to benefit together. Unfortunately you did not have the patience to wait another few more weeks.

As for Patreon, yes, you are probably able to get more because you don't have to share anything with authors or the copyright owner. If you consider the split among all three parties, how much do you think you can keep in your pocket? As for the WW, from what I know that they will only give 30% to the copyright owner (except QI because they are actually violating the agreement which never allowed them to monetize the translations except ebooks on specified ebook platforms). Usually the publishers like Zongheng or 17K, who grant the license to WW, would also split another half of the revenues that they receive with the authors. Basically, authors can only expect up to 15% maximum in royalties from translations. Do you really think it is a fair deal to authors? We can't comment about authors who work for other platforms, but we—Webnovel or Qidian—won't do such things to any of our authors. We will directly split the revenues equally among authors, translators and us. We admit that we need profits but we would not hurt our translators or authors. We don't believe that making a fool of authors or translators would work in the long run. Best of luck to you and all authors whose titles have been abused by the monetization practices of WW.

PS: WW is still translating MW and ED, as well as many more unlicensed novels. They have even put those two titles into their in-house Patreon/advanced chapter system. They have also monetized many unlicensed KR novels. If that is not copyright infringement, then what else is?

checkm8If your logic is correct, how does this concern you?

checkm8 Premium is the (modified) Patreon system...

Users who pay pay lesser for many chapters compared to the traditional Patreon tier system but as a result, there has to be some sacrifices, such as the lowering of release rates, which at 1/day is still fairly respectable.

There will likely be future expansions such as the increase of release rates if certain goals are hit.

WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL If your logic is correct, how does this concern you?

You foolishly posted this on a public forum. If you hadn't posted on this topic it would have simply blown over. Your bitter post is keeping this discussion alive.

But then again, discretion isn't a word I would associate with webnovel postings.

Seriously, hire some competent PR people. Learn when to keep quiet.

checkm8 Yes, that is the 2-3 months. I'm not referring to the entire Premium Program.

That's the wrong mindset. Patreon is not even supposed to be allowed. Qidian could have banned it from the beginning, but out of goodwill allowed them to have their own Patreon, offering advanced chapters. So which is better? Totally nothing additional or months of additional Patreon income, while a few months break in between before royalties (something sustainable) come into place.

If Qidian was jealous, they could have banned everyone from having a Patreon account even before they go Premium. They even created a Patreon button for translators on the novel's page. So what are you talking about?

Qidian understands that technical difficulties prevent in-house Patreon to be created instantly. It is also this reason that they gave translators the right to run their Patreons till it became in-house, which is the Premium Program. Again, you are also thinking in the short term of a few months. WSSTH has 3000 chapters and ongoing. That will easily last a translator 2 years. To give up 2 years of sustainable royalties for a 3 month wait is just shortsighted in my opinion.

Maximilian So without any data that tells you that your book is profitable (i.e., earns more than fixed pay), you want everyone to just sign a contract with a blind leap of faith? So what happens when you sign and you realize you earn less than fixed pay (since Qidian doesn't know what will happen either)? It will cause translators to quit en masse because they can't go back to fixed pay anymore. The more pragmatic approach is to wait for data and then switch contracts when it is made known to them that they can earn more with royalties.

As to why translators can't switch back, this is a listed company. There are auditors watching all of these, so the company cannot act as it wishes. Everything has to go by the book.