Discussion Opinions on Qidian Mega-merge thread 2.0 - All future Qidian Opinion Threads Will Go Here

At this point I am just too frustrated that the draft function is just a lie..........

 

Someone need to make the story of qidian versus the community....

http://forum.novelupdates.com/threa...cial-writing-contest-submission-thread.40469/

 

plot armor doesnt exist in reality huh.

 

China!

 

Qidian FTW!!

 

Plot armour exists in reality. And that is having tons of cash. Everything will go your way.

 

I second to this SHIT!!
VOTE THEM OUT

 

The only saving grace is that paywall can't list on NU

 

But aren't those types of people who get hindered by plot armor?

 

Ah... depends. Some people are just too rich that they can get anything they want easily.

 

Iras bring bqck my iras fuckvi still open qi to read few novels but d9n5 invest to much bring my iras back to meee its like im read iras on lnmtl now on

 

isn't it quite natural? cuz this about business TBH I'm not the only one who think sooner or later this kind of thing will happen~ at least on my circle~ you are free to choice side~
my stand is I read as long as it free and it interesting for me~

 

Decided to write this to help community members understand the business aspect of the Qidan drama. Also please dont merge this with the mega thread.

Who am I? Been a lurker in the community for years. Ive been around since the transition from r/manga->r/lightnovels->r/noveltranslations. I was there from the beginning in spctv forums, and when Baka tsuki actually had novels. Ive been around for a while and finally created an account on NU last December.

Professionally, I've worked in banking,marketing,human resources, private equity, consulting, and corporate strategy(best job in the world). I have no publishing experience, but my analysis hopefully wont fall short in that respect.

*I am not at work or getting paid for this post, so i wont proof read this unless the content is hampered by grammar/spelling mistakes.

First thing, you got to understand your market: a very general market sizing analysis would go simple like this: about .5 mil unique users to NU in a month right? Generally speaking 90-95% of visitors dont pay for content. Leaving between 25-50k-ish users that pay something for content. Taking the average leaves the population at 37.5k. (http://safelink.apkoutlet.net/en/cost/novelupdates.com for figures)

First number 37.5k = potential paying customers population. Ok, for the second piece of the revenue questions we need to see how much our customers are worth. We can derive that from Patreon. At the high end we had a few translators making north of 5k per month, i didn't record those that were, but i do remember ren,deathblade and few others receiving north of this range. (Please correct me if wrong)(Also part of the issue was publicly showing how much you guys were making, but that thought is for another day) Conservative estimates puts that as 5$ average per Patreon patrons. Figures = 37,500 customers at $5 a piece.

Note this is based on a subscription model, not a per chapter model. 37.5k * $5 = $187,500. With sensitivity we have a lower range of 25k*$5= $125,000 and an upper range of 50k *$5= 250,000 ...Now 1% of the total population is is 5k users *$5=25,000. Oh yea, this is per month, so over a year we have the lowest limit at $25,000*12= $300,000, Lower Limit $125,000*12= $1,500,000, Mean of $187,500*12= $2,250,000 and an Upper Limit of 3,000,000. (if they charge $10, double the amount)

Basic analysis with no growth and low subscription cost, Qidan stands to make between $300,000 and $3,000,000 a year with a conservative subscription model.

If you are curious, if there was a novel that was popular and Qidan charged $0.1 per chapter. with a population of say 10k readers in a month 10,000* $.1*30= $30,000 for one novel per month. Now if an Qidan reader averages 5 books daily per month $30k*5= $150,000 is made per 5 books. (assuming all the books had 10k readers, you would get $150K*20*12= around 36,000,000) You can change the numbers around to check different scenario's, but you get the idea. However you want to slice it, there is money here.

Other notes;
Cost to Qidan= 40$ per chapter, Building the platform(no idea $$), and other overhead but essentially the $40 Qidan pays translators will be recovered very quickly and the other fixed costs will get covered over time quite easily. No healthcare, taxes, etc to be paid for translators because they are not employees and they receive no royalties. Almost as lucrative as bottled water.

tl;dr There is a lot of money to be made in novel translations, especially if you own the copyright.

*If you noticed, I left out marketing costs, barriers to entry eg; why Qidan is going to run into issues trying to capitalize on going international, other models, and why this is happening. Ill write another post at another time to address those issues.

 

tbh only problem i have with qidian is that they are friendly until they smell cash

then they become the arrogant young masters' ancestor

 

Goddamn. That's not a small amount of money. No wonder they want to go international and whatnot.

 

Nah, they're friendly because they smell cash, they become the arrogant young master's ancestor when people are rejecting them. They do it with force.

 

here I'll edit it for u
Ironic how qidian owns chinese novels who the villains are usually arrogant young masters ancestor, and qidian is just like that

 

Is that number of potential customers for one novel/translator? I don't think any translator gets this many patreons honestly speaking(at least at currently)

 

Look at the market size, based of Nu's traffic. Not per novel but paying user.