Is Xianxiaworld losing money?

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by Black9Pink, Jan 9, 2017.

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Is Xianxiaworld losing money?

  1. Yes, losing money

    44 vote(s)
    83.0%
  2. No, making a profit

    9 vote(s)
    17.0%
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  1. Black9Pink

    Black9Pink Active Member

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  2. negritis

    negritis The Mathematician

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  3. Black9Pink

    Black9Pink Active Member

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    Look like Xianxiaworld isn't the only site not making a profit.

    https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/new-lesyt-website#/

    Hello, we are the staff members of Lesyt. Lesyt was built by two friends to create a new sensation in the Chinese to English novel market. But since we didn't know Chinese ourselves, we started it by hiring translators, and that is how Lesyt is being run. And to be honest, we aren't earning back even close to what we have invested so far, but we are still positive as we are now starting phase two of our plan, where we create a new and improved platform for our releases.

    Risks & Challenges
    As I mentioned before, we are a website that has started with paying translators for the releases, and we also haven't earned back even half of what we have spent (25% to be honest), but the return is slowly improving.
     
  4. Black9Pink

    Black9Pink Active Member

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    From the reddit thread "Xianxiaworld might be shutting down", translator Little Shanks explain why Xianxiaworld is not very popular with the community

    https://www.reddit.com/r/noveltranslations/comments/5o2ivr/tl_xianxiaworld_might_be_shutting_down/

    There's quite a bit of history between them, the community, and everything in general. I personally have some history with them as well.

    • This is my opinion, but I think the reason they failed is because they wantonly barged into the community thinking they could do anything without facing repercussions.
    • They were notorious for their terrible translations, leaving their editors to clean up most of the work, effectively making their editors guesslators. To top it off, despite all their efforts, those editors who were taking on a much much larger work load than expected were either poorly compensated or not compensated at all.
    • Their owner came into the community under the guise of simply hoping to improve the English of the translators who worked for him. They started out by picking out all the novels off of the most popular list on Qidian and releasing them at MTL level if not worse quality.
    • They were the reason why I chose to give up the first series I ever translated, Firmament of the Heaven Domain/Realms in the Firmament, when I was starting out as a translator. They were releasing raw MTL quality translations for the first 6 chapters just to "keep pace" with me. When I tried to contact them about allowing me to translate the series since I was the first to release, it was my first series, and their quality was really bad, their owner tried to strong arm me into joining them; otherwise, they would never stop. Rather than deal with the stress of it all, I decided to call it quits and move on.
    • When Er Gen's new novel A Will Eternal came out, they tried to call dibs on it despite multiple people and groups showing interest. In the end, a new translator picked it up, but they decided it didn't matter and took it over anyway, thus causing a coalition of translators in the community to form against them.
    • They've heavily advertised on this subreddit, using their account solely to promote their own website, at one point even offering money incentives and such to recruit translators, which is against Reddit policy. Thus, they were banned from Reddit as a whole by a Reddit admin. Afterwards, the ban was lifted on the account of one of the moderators of this subreddit, Kazekid, speaking up for them. However, eventually the ban was reinstated because of a certain incident which will be mentioned later on.
    • When they began advertising and offering money for translations of series per chapter, a few translators ended up flocking to them. However, those who were already good or well established didn't end up going. Thus, this incentivized incidents where some of their translators threw in MTL and left it to the editors to clean up to make a quick buck. To make matters worse, they had zero quality control.
    • The certain incident that led to their ban being reinstated in subreddit was them being linked to a site aggregate content thief, with an overwhelming amount of evidence proving it to be them. Initially, they denied any association whatsoever, but later on, they conveniently explained that one of their former employees had made the site because the employee owned the rights to XXW's site design. However, evidence proved that the aggregate site was created a month or so before the XXW website was even made.
    • Cut to now, XXW is too much of a money sink. Their investment failed and is unlikely to make a good return in the future, so they stopped paying their editors, eventually translators, and now it's shutting down.
    That's the best summary I can make this late at night, but yeah, that's why many in the subreddit have a negative opinion of them.

    Note: Do take what I say with a grain of salt, since out of anyone, I have the most bad history with them and am the most likely to have a negative bias. I don't dislike their editors or translators, simply the entity as a whole and their owner.
     
  5. Mizura

    Mizura Well-Known Member

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    That was informative. And that's really just how the market is, really: there is a huge difference between what readers think is 'fair market price' (see that thread about people complaining that translators are overcharging, lol) and what the Real market price really is, i.e. readers expect quality daily releases, but won't pay the fair rate for quality translators + editors. When translators are underpaid, they cut corners with the quality (what, you think the translators can't do better? They often can, -if- you give them enough time and compensate them properly), leaving a bigger workload to the editors, who eventually wise up as well and leave.

    The best quality translators, are, in the end, those who do it because they really love the series and want to translate it, and are thus, strictly doing it as a hobby. However, that's on the premise that they get to work on their own terms. When readers start complaining that they aren't being fast enough 'like XXW', complain about them being greedy/lazy/stockpiling chapters, that becomes an increasing disincentive for them to translate as well.

    Well, the problem seemed obvious enough from my side to start with, when readers think the fair rate for quality translations is $30 / chapter, when the market price for a good quality translation would be closer to $150 or more.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2017
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  6. webolive

    webolive Well-Known Member

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    $30 is cheap
    $50 seems like a good price
    $70 is expensive
    $150 is exesive
     
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  7. Mizura

    Mizura Well-Known Member

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    See, that's your personal opinion. I know the market price for translations in China, and $120 for 3000 characters ($40 per 1000 characters) will get you a not-very-good-quality translation (and that's the super-negotiated bulk rate our company got from the translation company. The quality was so bad we tried to find a better company, and their rates were much more expensive). Adding $30 for a good native proofreader is on the low side.

    And I'm talking about the market price in China. It's even higher in Western countries.

    What you don't get is that the really good translations you see are done by people who really love the series, so are putting in effort. But if their mastery of both languages is that good, they don't need to settle for the lowest-paying translation jobs. They can go become director of international sales or something at some company. I can do pretty good Chinese -> English translations if I wanted to, but I would never accept a career as a translator: the pay/work ratio is just not worth it to me.
     
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  8. IlkatSumil

    IlkatSumil 意地悪師

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    Exactly! Translation is a highly valuable skill that some people just happen to turn into a hobby. It's like restoring classic cars or cooking gourmet food. Even if some people do those things for fun rather than money, you don't get to deny the worth of their skills just because you want to get high quality shit for free (or dirt cheap).
     
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  9. Mizura

    Mizura Well-Known Member

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    That's a really good analogy. My mom's an Amazing cook (she can cook food from many regions of the world, and can figure out most ingredients through taste), but just because she'll cook for guests for free, it doesn't mean you don't have to pay for proper chefs if you want to dictate what you eat on your own terms. You can't force her to open a restaurant either, because she has career options she finds much more interesting. xD
     
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  10. Jaspaaar

    Jaspaaar Well-Known Member

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    You really need to consider the price in consideration of the context rather than just giving arbitrary figures.

    For example if a novel charged $75 for a chapter when they only do like 3 regular chapters per week, you probably wouldn't do it, right?

    But look at Martial World, we already do 12 regular chapters per week. We set it at $75 because we simply couldn't meet demand if it was at $40 or $50. Also when you donate, you're thanking us for the 12 regular chapters we already do in addition to it going towards a sponsored chapter.
     
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  11. Nimroth

    Nimroth Someone

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    Part of the problem is likely that a lot of readers see the donations as buying a chapter, when it really is closer to a crowdfunding.
    It is only really expensive when individuals donate the full amount for chapters, not so much when a chapter is funded by multiple people.
     
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  12. Mizura

    Mizura Well-Known Member

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    Haha, that too. "I'm not paying $xx for a chapter, I can buy several books for that price." - when nobody is asking him to fund the full amount. xD
     
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  13. Black9Pink

    Black9Pink Active Member

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    Some simply math.

    Let's assume Xianxiaworld pays $20 to translator per chapter. Doesn't sound like much but it will add up very quickly.

    $20 x 100 chapters = $2000 per 100 chapters.
    With several novels, it would be $10,000 for 500 chapters.

    If they can't earn that $10,000 back in ad revenue and donations, they can easily lose thousands of dollars.
     
  14. etvolare

    etvolare Celestial Fluff

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    Fantastic post. I usually don't quote entire posts, but I really had to for this one. I often pipe in on discussions in which people say "translators want too much money" or "$20 is sufficient for a sponsored chapter", but I think I get ignored because well, I'm a translator and not terribly objective on this topic. I translate computer games professionally (and my staff, bless their hearts, will roll their eyes now because I've been making them test play two games this week. Both of them are going to Steam... within a few days. http://volarenovels.com for more) and I've said again and again, I would feel horribly insulted and walk away at the prices the community thinks translations are worth.

    Even current sponsored chapter prices aren't worth my time if a paid gig offered me that, not to mention that translators are people who love the story and are very well versed with the lingo. The passion shows through in our translations and makes them so much more enjoyable to read. Hire someone from a professional agency (which I've also worked with), and I guarantee you'll get jarring translations similar to "Jiang Chen, the earthly trainer, firing off the 'East King Finger' and knocking his enemy's head off" as opposed to "Jiang Chen, the secular cultivator, deploying the 'Eastern King Point', sending his enemy's head flying off across the horizon".
     
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  15. Mizura

    Mizura Well-Known Member

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    You just had to remind me of what happened when an official translation site for Korean webtoons came out. Fans of series like Noblesse and Tower of God etc. were ecstatic at first: we could support our favorite webtoons in English!

    Then the 'official translations' came out. Serious characters were talking like little punks. Term usages were extremely weird. Grammar mistakes Everywhere. It was FAR worse than fan translations.

    Official translations have since improved (at least there aren't grammar mistakes everywhere anymore), but it's still a far cry from what the fans were providing. Rich language adaptation that accounted for the personality of characters (from elegant speech to country accents) were replaced with bland monotonous speech at the level of high schoolers, plus there are obvious mistakes in translation (and I do mean obvious, given the context) and terms being translated differently every few chapters. As a reader, it certainly made me want to cry tears of blood. I saw my enjoyment of some series plunge by half.

    People don't realize that in particular for English <-> Asian languages, the 'professional' level is still rather low right now, so it costs a lot to find Good translators. You occasionally find some people who are capable of lightning fast translations, but at that level, they're the equivalent of high-level simultaneous translators, and Their pay rate can reach over several hundred dollars per Hour (I'm not kidding at all).

    That said... you're making your team test Two games at the same time? Like... this:
    https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/01/25

    You're evil. xD
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2017
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  16. Black9Pink

    Black9Pink Active Member

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    It looks like Xianxiaworld is shutting down with their unedited/ almost MTL mass release.

    The owners thought they can make some quick bucks but it turned out it is costing them thousands of dollars.
     
  17. TooLazyToThink

    TooLazyToThink Well-Known Member

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    edit:
    oh they are paying the translators? makes sense
     
    Last edited: Jan 17, 2017
  18. Black9Pink

    Black9Pink Active Member

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    Status update from a XXW editor:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/noveltranslations/comments/5oh1su/tl_xianxiaworlds_status/

    Hello, everyone!

    I know a lot of people are curious about XianXiaWorld's status as well as the novels being translated in the site. So, to start off with the announcement...

    Yes, the rumors are true, XianXiaWorld is shutting down. As for the details regarding the impending end of this website, I do not possess the exact knowledge nor the rights to disclose it. Instead, let’s focus on the more important question: What will happen to the novels being translated in XianXiaWorld?

    They are either dropped or the translation teams are moving. Below you'll find a list of the novels and their current status.



    Series Status
    Dragon-Marked War God: Moved to Path of Translations
    World Defying Dan God: Moved to Path of Translations
    Realms in the Firmament: The novel will be translated elsewhere, but for the moment, it is still to be announced.
    Dominating Sword Immortal: Planning to move.
    The Magus Era: Planning to move.
    Beast Piercing the Heavens: Dropped
    Emperor of the Cosmos: Moved to Quantum Novels.
    King of Myriad Domains: Planning to move.
    The Portal of Wonderland: The translation team hasn't replied.


    As for the reason some of them got recently updated, it's only because the manager of xxw (the one who's basically doing all the hard work) had asked to at least finish all the translated novels stacked in google drive. Most of the translation teams are still preparing to move, and because of that, a significant delay is to be expected.

    Another question: What about the donations still in the queue?

    I have already asked the manager to return them. I am not entirely sure about their status, because as said in the past, the translation teams never had the control over the site. It is only the manager who is doing everything as well as receiving all the donations.

    Extra: RITF's status

    Rain is still doing some preparations before transferring to somewhere else. He will NEVER drop RITF, and he has even translated more chapters since the last update (at least we have 5 now). As for when it will be posted and where it will be moved, it is yet to be announced. Rain is currently busy with Chinese New Year, so please do expect that RITF will return after that. For the meantime, we are also re-translating and re-editing the earlier chapters; we know that they are quite... bad... so expect that once we are back, RITF will be better.

    Finale All the translation teams in XXW would like to express our sincerest gratitude for those who have supported us from the very beginning. Even though there were a lot of issues along the way, we are very thankful to those who stayed with us till the end. Now that most of the translation teams are moving elsewhere, we hope that you guys could still support them. Again, Thank you!

    Note: I will update this post if there are some changes about the status of the novels.
     
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  19. STKNIGHT

    STKNIGHT Well-Known Member

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    Its was reported that the owner also had an translation stealing site sinfe both pages had alot of similarities
     
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