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  • Inquiry From a Prospective Translator & Editor

Hi, I managed to pass the translator and editor test in July. After I gave my contact details (my mobile phone number and Wechat ID), I was told I'd be contacted by a representative within the month, but now it's already August. From previous experience, I know it's easy for something to go wrong when adding overseas contacts to Wechat, and I was wondering if that was the issue. I hope I'll be contacted and can get started soon. Thank you.

    LHTK first July, mid July or end July? If you contacted at mid July then maybe you should wait for at most 2 weeks 😉

      Thanks for the reply. I got my results back mid July. I'll wait and see what happens.

        I passed the translator's test in July, too! :)

        I gave Qidian's recruitment team my Skype contact but didn't hear from anyone for about a week. I then emailed them to ask about it and they said the person in charge of assigning novels to translators is really busy right now, but will get in touch with me by the 15th of August.

        Hope that helps! I personally can't wait to get started either!

        Be careful we, the reader, wants the perfect editing. Gwahahaha.

        Prepare to be flamed in forum if you fail. Evil Laugh

        That is a hard job. Good luck. Oh man being an editor means you get early chapters, right? Envy. Gwahahaha.

        Thanks for the info Verulean. Great to hear you passed the test the same time as me. Hopefully, neither of us disappoint and end up getting flamed!

        7 days later

        @LHTK Hey! Just wondering if you've heard from Qidian / Webnovel yet? There's still about a week (or 4 business days?) before the 15th of August, but I still haven't heard from anyone on Skype sooo I'm beginning to get a little worried myself... <__<;;

        • LHTK replied to this.

          Are you manna from heaven?... Translators and editors, please Quindan, Martial Arts Master novel ran out of translated chapters and and is direly in need of a translator or maybe an editor too by now. Could you PLEASE check out this novel? I assure you the readers of this novel are the appreciative kind not to mention desperate!!

            Ply Manna from the heavens XD I honestly don't know what's going on with Martial Arts God, but I feel your pain.

            I'm still waiting for someone to get in touch with me on Skype so I can start translating! I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and will be waiting till the 15th before shooting them another email, but I have the sinking suspicion they've forgotten all about me...

                Verulean Sorry for the late reply. No, I haven't heard anything yet, but hopefully that'll change soon. Like you, I'm planning to send them another email after the 15th.

                    What's it like being a translator/Editor?

                    On a scale of 1 - 10,
                    1 being 'Horrible Beyond Meaning'
                    5 being 'Shrug Eh'
                    10 being 'Super Fascinating Rainbow'

                    Also, why would you want to become a translator/Editor?

                      Misguided_Rooster Getting extra money while reading webnovel is a good reason.

                      Potential for almost 'non-existent' future 'licensing' for manga/tv serial/movie/game probably. That what was advertised in other sites.

                          LHTK Thanks, that's all I wanted to know :) I'll be sure to bump this topic and let you know as soon as they get in touch with me. I'm paranoid about being the last one left in the playground -- you know, like when you play hide-and-seek with your friends, and then you wait and wait and wait and then it turns out everyone already went home without you... Okay, so that never actually happened to me when I was younger, but you get the idea...

                          Misguided_Rooster It depends on what you're translating, to be honest. I've worked as an in-house translator in animation companies, translating order sheets, instructions, and feedback from clients, and while the pay wasn't TOO bad, most of the work was mind-numbingly boring. I've also translated interviews and side materials for certain fandoms (I won't say which) in my free time, and that was much more interesting, even though I wasn't getting paid a single cent for any of it.

                          As for my reasons for joining Webnovel as a translator: I want to write and publish a series of novels of my own, one day, and I find that translating webnovels is actually a good way to get the creative juices flowing, especially after having been stuck translating (mostly) technical stuff for a while. I've been practicing with a few webnovels, and quite a few times I've had to stop and think about how to phrase something so it sounds more natural in English. I've also had to look up a few words, just to make sure I'm using them correctly -- only to discover I've been wrong the whole time! VERY embarrassing.

                          I don't know if I'll be able to choose which webnovel to translate (I highly doubt it), but as long as the story's interesting that would be an instant 9 or 10 for me. If the writing is extremely terrible and/or glorifies rape or pedophilia, that would definitely be a 1: "Horrible Beyond Meaning" for me...

                          MasterRabbink cough I'm won't argue with that. Money is always nice to have cough

                                5 days later

                                @LHTK
                                Update: Sent another email to the recruitment team 3 days ago (14th of August), no response yet so far.
                                Made a Discord account and asked around on the WN server. CKTalon replied, and it seems that someone will only get in touch with me next month. They're in the middle of implementing new policies, I think (I didn't ask about the details).

                                I'm bumping this topic just in case there are other translators out there who also passed the test in the last two months but haven't heard from Qidian / Webnovel. It's going to be a loooong wait, hopefully they won't have forgotten all about me by then...

                                  Perhaps you should try FB group. It seems Webnovel admin are there. Only devs are here.

                                    Thanks for the info Verulean. Haven't been able to get any response, so your post really helped. Hopefully, they get things going sooner rather than later.

                                      @MasterRannink

                                      I sent a message to the Webnovel facebook page earlier today, but haven't received any reply other than the standard "Thanks for messaging us. We try to be as responsive as possible..." I also tried messaging the administrators of the Webnovel Group, but haven't got any response.

                                      Maybe it's because it's the weekend, there's a time difference, and I'm not connected to them on facebook, so it'll take them longer to reply. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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