News Centinni: Behind the Scenes

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by WhiteMoonlight, Jul 31, 2020.

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  1. Coilingeat

    Coilingeat Active Member

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    I'm a volunteer and didn't expect money at the beginning at all because I was rather non believing in myself and my tl. Now tho I see that Player is very popular for month old novel and now I'm making Paypal but I have problems because of the location of my country and because of my rather young age. For true I wasn't even thinking about payment because I did tl very quickly and it helped me a lot at understanding English so I can move from my country.
     
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  2. Jeebus

    Jeebus Well-Known Member

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    As a business co-owner and manager, I can't tell you how important it is to consult with a CPA, or the equivalent in your country. They can save you a massive amount of money on taxes and help your company function more efficiently financially. We just converted from an LLC to an S Corp after our CPA suggested it. It cost us around $1,000 in consulting and filing fees, but we saved that much in taxes after about 2 weeks.

    Even if you don't pay a CPA to do your taxes, you can consult with one for $200-300 in the US. Do that. Then, figure out your costs based on your talk with the CPA. After that, figure out what you can afford to pay your workers. Have everyone sign a contract that states your expectations and their remuneration. Be prompt when paying them. Be transparent.

    I'm not a kid, and I had to learn all of this the hard way after opening my business. Everyone makes mistakes. What's important is how you handle your mistakes and how you learn from them. It doesn't seem like you've handled this well, nor does it seem like you're learning much from this. Take a step back and figure things out financially and operationally before you make any operational changes, and don't make any other public statements until you've got your ducks in a row.
     
  3. Arzvak

    Arzvak Member

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    our total rev is around that much lol
     
  4. rwxwuxiaworld

    rwxwuxiaworld Well-Known Member

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    Then y'all just need to do a lot of studying and learning on your own. I mean that in an encouraging way - when I first started Wuxiaworld, I started with ZERO tech knowledge but spent hours poring through sites to learn how to set up Wordpress, how to to configure stuff, how to do server restarts, researching the differences between shared hosting/VPS hosting/dedicated, how shell command works, etc. I spent like 20 hours a week doing that, on top of 40 hours in my regular day job and 30+ hours translating. If you can't afford to pay someone, then you need to power through it and learn.
     
  5. Arzvak

    Arzvak Member

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    I will surely start learning about all this, thanks a lot!
     
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  6. rwxwuxiaworld

    rwxwuxiaworld Well-Known Member

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    Good luck guys, I do wish everyone involved the best. This sort of drama aint fun, and I should know .
     
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  7. Kiki0246

    Kiki0246 Top Notch Fujoshi, Owner of ISO TLs

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    Wdym, I pat translators 50 cents per 1000 views, including the unmonetized views from people with ad block because this is how I’ve seen it done in the past from groups like, as you mentioned, volare and ww. I do earn more than that, and I have the receipts to prove it. Idk if I’m allowed to say specific rates but if you’re in translating servers, you should know it’s a good rate, but not crazy. By the way, volare and ww both pay a higher ad revenue rate.

    Edit: have* paid a higher ad rev rate in my experiences with them in the past.

    You can ask any of my translators to confirm my rate. Literally any. If I’m losing money to pay my translators what you call a ridiculous number, why would I be running my site?
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2020
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  8. Wujigege

    Wujigege *Christian*SIMP*Comedian

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    Let's all kiss shake hands and make up
    FORGIVENESS!!
    If I can forgive Brie, you guys can forgive each other

    Brie for President!!!
    [​IMG]
     
  9. rwxwuxiaworld

    rwxwuxiaworld Well-Known Member

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    Full disclosure, WW's in a position where we no longer really share ad revenue (because our rates have been bitchslapped to hell and back), it's all flat rate or revshare for advance chapters, etc.
     
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  10. Wujigege

    Wujigege *Christian*SIMP*Comedian

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    I do not need receipts. I know that you use Ezoic. Their way of calculating ad views is not exactly standard so it might be what is misleading you.
    You can look at your own numbers closely.
    I am not including donations.
    Just paying from ad views, it is impossible for a number of reasons like you yourself just pointed out eg ad block.
    So you are saying that if 100% of readers use adblock, you still pay $0.50 for 1,000 views?
    That is impossible. Plain and simple.
    But if you are using donatons to pay translators then I can understand.
    You cannot pay with money that doesn't exist because ads don't earn 100% of the time. You have things like Active View Viewable, Fill rate, Ad blocked views, Unmatched requests etc. A lot of metrics to calculate how 100% of views do not translate into revenue. If you are paying money that doesn't exist then I commend you.
     
  11. Kiki0246

    Kiki0246 Top Notch Fujoshi, Owner of ISO TLs

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    Oh my bad, I didn't know it's changed. Sorry!

    I still stand by my rate though. Tbh I lost $300 in May and barely made anything in June cuz of how covid wrecked ads, but I've always done that number because I think it's fair to translators while giving myself a reasonable profit. When we're so small, I like it when it's just a simple rate instead of weird systems to save money. I use google analytics for views, not Ezoic.

    EDIT: I never use donations to pay translators. That rate has always worked for me with the exception of May because ads just really crashed. The money exists and it's your choice to believe it or not :)
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2020
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  12. rwxwuxiaworld

    rwxwuxiaworld Well-Known Member

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    Yeah COVID wrecked things HARD for the ad industry. On our side, it accelerated our transition away from adshare to flat rate + sponsor revshare.
     
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  13. Ricelord

    Ricelord Well-Known Member

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    The big names coming to brew tea now, I see.

    To preface, I'm not here to bash, I'm genuinely confused. I'm curious where the argument that OP was greedy for money came from. OP started translations for PN by themselves, right? They wanted to try out translations and eventually joined a group for the extra support (editors, etc.) not even expecting pay. They also left because the group was too focused on pushing chapters out whereas OP wanted to spend more time and put more quality. So where does OP being greedy for money come through? Trying to claim what was promised is not being greedy.
     
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  14. Arzvak

    Arzvak Member

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    OP was hired to tl PN, they did not pick it up, just clearing this up.
     
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  15. riririn

    riririn Well-Known Member

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    But what happened with the money that OP was supposed to earn? They did the number crunching on their post and the amount they got is significantly different from the cut based on the percentage they earned. What's up with that?

    ETA: Regardless of whether they were already translating or if they got hired to translate, they were promised a certain amount and it doesn't look like they got it. I haven't seen any clarification from Centinni's end about this in either thread about the situation.
     
  16. Butters

    Butters Well-Known Member

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    Don't know if it was taken down or edited, but they said that OP was trying to take a bigger cut of revenue than was promised by taking from what would go to the editors.
    According to OP, they were actually requesting that they be given their promised rate instead of half the agreed upon value.
    They also did not want to add more translators to the project, as the translators would be translating from Russian mtl, and the project would lose quality. This opposition had little to nothing to do with them losing money (from the addition of another translator, which would lead to it being split more ways) but rather that they valued quality over quantity and didn't want to see PN just pushing out chapters for money.
    In this sense, it becomes clear that OP is not money hungry, but rather it is centinni that is money hungry.
     
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  17. fox23

    fox23 Digging Pits

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    Shichi - and yes we can all tell it’s you. Don’t think we can’t tell you are trying to divert attention elsewhere.

    1) That rate is wrong for Foxaholic, and you shouldn’t even be sharing such numbers as justification for your rates. We are comparing apples to oranges.
    2) I have not embezzled and stolen money from my translators. Also thank you for informing me that taking a portion of someone’s kofi and patreon is possible... I never thought someone would actually want to deal with the extra work of calculating all that. So that's another issue with your statement - Foxaholic does not take a cut of people's ko-fi and patreon.
    3) We have no requirements on update schedule. You do. End of story.
    4) You guys have the least ground to stand upon in trying to even imply someone is a traitor for leaving and taking your novels with you. Need I really remind and tell everyone that Tinni was part of Foxaholic for a few months until she deleted her translations from the site without notice and moved them over to centinni - again, without giving me notice that she created a whole new group?

    Ps please pardon any and all typos as I’m on a phone and just woke up to an idiot trying to pull in my poor group as a shield.

    But happy one year anniversary Foxaholic!
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2020
  18. Akesato

    Akesato Well-Known Member

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    Maybe the admins were being childish and didn’t want to be blamed for the translator’s leave so they painted themselves in white and cried “you money hungry TRAITOR! We treated you as FAMILY!!” for extra dramatical effect. Or maybe they couldn’t understand that saying you will get x% and giving y% will raise questions, their English does seem lacking.
     
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  19. riririn

    riririn Well-Known Member

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    Okay, so what about the money? Why was OP paid less than what they calculated they should be getting?
     
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  20. fox23

    fox23 Digging Pits

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    Okay, because I have finally dragged myself out of bed, it's time for my evidence. Firstly, I am not surprised at all about this drama with Centinni. This is what happens when you grow too fast without preparing yourself. Please do your research first about taxes (or get an accountant to help) and don't use your age as an excuse, okay?

    Here are some screenshots of how Tinni joined Foxaholic in order to utilize our work of establishing a readerbase. Centinni had yet to officially launch but they were planning it months ahead; why didn't they also plan out the issue of ad revenue and taxing hm?

    Tinni barely translated any chapters in her 4-5(?) months of being with us - Foxaholic has no requirements on update frequency and pretty much all the chapters Tinni posted were from when she was part of the Wordrain69 team. Hm, I wonder what she could had done with all that free time?

    upload_2020-8-1_13-25-18.png
    upload_2020-8-1_13-25-41.png
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2020
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