Webnovel.Forum

I don't know about Korean>English translators, but IINM all Chinese>English translators will be assigned to one of the translation studios once they pass webnovel's test. Problem is, each translation studio actually has their own rates, ie. some studios pay better than the others, so it actually makes more sense to ask around to make sure you haven't been assigned to one of the lower paying studios.

Webnovel doesn't actually tell you there are other studios to choose from when they assign you to a studio -- they probably don't think it's worth the hassle -- so make sure to ask around!

Also, webnovel is extremely slow at responding. I think the average wait time is around 1-2 months. Probably best to just forget about your application for now and wait to be "pleasantly surprised" when the reply finally comes...

General translation advice: try to pick a novel you're actually interested in. You'll burn out very quickly if you don't actually like the writing or the plot. It doesn't feel like work if you enjoy the novel, but if you can't stand the writing, every minute spent translating it will feel like pure torture. >_>;;

They take forever to reply, sometimes up to 2-3 months. I've also heard that they usually don't notify those who failed the test, but don't quote me on that. Best to just forget about it and move on with your life for now, the reply will come when it comes...

On the other hand, you can try applying directly to the translation groups working for Webnovel, since Webnovel will just assign you to one of the groups if you pass, anyway. From what I understand, the groups don't all offer the same rates: some pay better than the others, so make sure to shop around!

Good luck!

Puncake That's genius. I don't have a book here, but I'm tempted to start one just to write something really sarcastic and troll-ish for the pirate sites. Maybe even post a (bad) recipe or two.

I kind of wonder how these pirate sites get around the SS paywall for premium novels. Do they actually buy SS just to scrape everything? Do they use free SS from multiple accounts? I guess it's easier to auto-scrape everything on this site now that there's a paid all-you-can-read elite membership...

WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL I see... just wondering since the cover was suddenly changed 4-5 months after the novel was first published in the case of Hello, Mr. Major General, and there are a lot of complaints by existing readers about the new cover in the chapter comments section. Oh well!

Not sure if you would know the answer to this, but why do covers for translated novels suddenly change? The covers for Hello, Mr. Major General, Warning: Tsundere President, and a few others were changed last week, and I can't understand why. The new cover for Hello, Mr. Major General doesn't even suit the story, IMO, because no one in the story looks like the man on the cover...

Also, would you happen to know if Webnovel is currently recruiting English to Indonesian translators?

I'm not sure what's up with TAC specifically, but for some novels the original Chinese chapters on Qidian were only censored some time after they were published. If that happens the smut will still be there on the Chinese pirate sites, but it'll be toned down or deleted entirely from the official Qidian chapters. I only know this because that's what happened with the early smut chapters in Hello, Mr. Major General. The (rather graphic) sex scenes had to be rewritten in the official chapters, but it was badly done (I suspect the Qidian editors did it themselves without consulting the author) so a lot of things ended up not making sense...

That said, TAC readers should ask the translator and Webnovel what's actually going on with the cut content for TAC. Who knows, it could be some other reason entirely shrug

I guess they're censoring it because they consider author patreons to be a potential loss of income for webnovel? Idk, that's the only explanation I can think of. Like say Reader A only has 10 USD to spend on webnovels per month, and s/he decides to give it all to an uncontracted author's patreon instead of buying SS with it, which means webnovel doesn't get anything.
Authors are also less likely to want to commit to a contract with Webnovel if they already have a successful patreon, IMO. This is just my guess, not saying this is the real reason or anything. Wish they would at least put out an announcement about it tho, pulling the rug from under the authors like this is not cool.

If I'm not mistaken, the words naive, freedom, and adult are also censored. ”www”as well, which I think is to prevent direct linking to other websites. I only noticed because I saw quite a few e and a comments, and couldn't figure out what they were supposed to be until I realized they must be ewww and awww.

My guess is that they are using a censor filter meant specifically for China, and they dumped the English equivalents of all the bad words into the filter without checking whether the words are truly offensive in the English-speaking world. shrug

LHTK Schuvi Congratz!

f0xal3x I've been waiting since end of July, and like raccoonway I still haven't heard from anyone, despite repeated assurances from the Webnovel recruitment team that someone will eventually get in touch with me. I've pretty much given up and moved on to other things now, unfortunately. It's been 3 months, after all...

I've heard that Webnovel no longer signs independent translators, ie. all translators who pass the test will be asked to work with one of the existing translation groups. That might be the reason for the hold-up, I don't really know. The translation groups don't all pay the same rates though -- probably a combination of Webnovel paying them different rates for different books + the translation groups taking a cut for themselves -- so I'm not entirely sure how this is going to work.

To all those still waiting, good luck!

Wouldn't it be better to put up the 1st chapters for the novels in the voting pool? That way readers will have a better idea of what the novels are like. As others have mentioned, the synopses and covers don't really say much... it isn't so bad this week, but IIRC two or three weeks ago all three covers in the Female Lead section looked like copy-pasta, probably because they were all from the same artist / designer. You could have swapped the covers around and no one would have noticed!

Schuvi You managed to get a response from Sunny?! Teach me your ways, Master! No, seriously, I've sent her 3 different messages on Discord over the last two weeks (while she was online) and haven't gotten a single response. T__T I think there are 2 or 3 editors who are always on #qidian_realm, and they seem pretty friendly, so you should (hopefully) be able to get a quick response from them. Good luck!

I wish the Webnovel team would at least post a generic message in this topic along the lines of "Please be patient, we're trying to sort things out as quickly as possible." The radio silence is nerve-racking =/

I know you said you're half-joking, but I would love to have you as my editor ;) I feel like there's a bond now between all of us who are still waiting for WN to reply. Maybe we should give all the translators and editors currently stuck in limbo a name, like "The Stranded" or something.

The topic getting unstickied is a little concerning... There's also a full week of national day holidays in China from October 1st to October 7th, so I doubt anyone will be responding this week =/

Has anyone in this topic heard from Sunny or Webnovel so far?

^ Well that's certainly one way of getting Sunny's attention!

@Sunnnyy if you're reading this I really would like to translate 变身女学霸, I translated a chapter from it for my translator's test and found it interesting. Please let me know if someone will get in touch to me soon, I've been waiting since end of July. I will have to move on to other translation jobs (most likely Japanese novels) if I don't hear from anyone within the next two weeks =/

Still nothing from either Sunny or the Webnovel recruitment team...

This thread by Sunny seemed promising but she doesn't seem to have replied to anyone yet =/
https://forum.webnovel.com/d/12398-description/

There are a lot more translators and editors in limbo than I thought, I guess that's why Sunny is taking so long to get back to us!

Hi Sunny! Thank you for creating this thread ;)

I passed WN's translator's test end of July, and gave the recruitment team my contact on both Skype and Discord, but haven't heard from anyone since. The recruitment team behind recruitment@qidian.com has been very polite and responsive to my questions, but so far all they have been able to tell me is "please wait." Is there anything you can add to this, to maybe ease the wait? There are a few of us (translators and editors) waiting, you can find the rest in this thread:

https://forum.webnovel.com/d/9532-inquiry-from-a-prospective-translator-editor

I suppose at this point we're just afraid we've been forgotten, since the recruitment team is probably flooded with applications every single day. Would be nice if you could let us know if we're still in the queue, and maybe give us an estimate on how long it will take before someone gets in touch with us ;)

Thanks again!

raccoonway I've been using the same email thread / conversation the whole time, beginning with the notification of my test results from recruitment@qidian.com. And no, I still haven't heard from anyone... I'll shoot them another email later, when it's noon for them.

Have they been communicating with you through recruitment@webnovel.com instead? I wonder if one of the addresses simply forwards to the other? The webnovel.com one sounds more recent to me, but I guess you could try using the qidian.com address if you haven't had any luck so far.

The wait is killing me :/

Update:
I sent WN another email last Friday and received a reply on the same day; they said the recruitment team leader was away on sick leave but will get in touch with me next (this) week. I was going to post this on the topic last Friday but I had problems logging in.

I still haven't heard from anyone so far. I messaged both Sunny and Team Webnovel on Discord about an hour ago but haven't gotten a response from either of them. To those of you still waiting, my advice would be to send them another email ASAP to hopefully speed things along.

BUMP! Anyone heard from @WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL yet?

I will be bumping this thread every Friday to hopefully get WN's attention. I'll send them another email and ask on Discord too. I hate to be such a bother, but at this point I just want to know if I should continue to wait or just move on =/

Schuvi
You've been waiting since 11th of June? That's some serious patience o__O

raccoonway
Hmm, that doesn't sound right. Here's what happened for me:

July 24th : Received an email from recruitment@qidian.com stating that I passed the test and asking that I provide my contact details. Replied to this email with my Skype address. No response whatsoever: no automated reply, nothing.

July 31st : Sent an email (under the same conversation) asking whether they can give me the Skype contact for their WN representative instead. Received a reply the very same day stating that the person in charge of assigning novels to me is really busy with recruitment work, but will get in touch with me by 15th of August.

August 14th: Sent them another email (also under the same conversation), this time with the username for my newly-created Discord account, just in case they would prefer to get in touch with me on Discord. No response. Still waiting for a reply to this.
Got on Discord and asked whether Webnovel hasn't gotten in touch with me because there are too many translators and they don't actually need me at the moment; CKTalon replied with "it's complicated" and said someone will probably get in touch with me in September. I don't remember the exact quote now but he said something about Webnovel being in the middle of implementing new policies.

Aaaaand I'm still waiting. If anyone has received a different response, please share!