Discussion Money for Chapters (poll)

So I've noticed a lot more discussion lately about paying money for chapters/early access/more releases. Personally I'm fine with the second two, because they are already present in the community (Patreon, sponsorship) and I can still read chapters for free at whatever rate the translator is working at. Back to the main point: if you had to pay money to read chapters, would you? I suspect a substantial amount of readers would be lost if so, hopefully losing the incentive to do so in the first place. Either way, please vote so this can some data proving or disproving. (Note: if this has already been done, please direct me to the thread)

 

Nah, I'll just buy hardcopy books. If the webnovel is exceptionally good, I'd pay for it. It all depends on the author's skill to attract people. Also, if China can do this, why not the rest of the world?

 

nope, can't afford it....

 

I'd drop 99% of what I read, and only read that one or two exceptional novels

 

I do often pay even if I could access it in other ways, but my money is very limited so I would have to lower a lot my consumption

 

I am one of the few rare guys who wants to pay money to support author/translator but does not have any means for online payment.

 

I would rather spend my money on finished novels and not pay per chapter. Buying completed books from indie authors, so I would drop them 100% of the time if they added a paywall or early access stuff.

 

I would only pay for very few books. I don't need king of gods or tales of demons and gods if I have to pay. I will however pay for true martial world and against the gods

 

I wouldn't mind to pay if I've the nuffies... but I'm more concerned about this said 'releases', if we just got 1-2 chapter/months and also need to pay for it/more releases, to hell with that!

 

For me it comes down to how it feels. If they are already translating and I give money to them, then it fells like I'm praising their work and thanking them, but if they only translate when paid it feels, to me, like they're just profiteering off the authors work. I know it isn't logical since there isn't much of a difference but how things feel is important

 

Probably only one or two novels on NU that is currently being translated that I would be willing to pay to read.

 

No. I would drop all the series. Maybe I would pay for one or two of them if they are fully(meaning completely translated) available and not too expensive, maybe like 5$ or so.

 

Here is my place for "relaxation", being sincere I would not pay for something here (apart from donation and seeing advertisements method, or something like patreon eventually, lol).
If I had to pay for chapters... Never would, probably would return to the world of buying normal books and finding other hobbies to be the "main" ones, and perhaps buying some complete ones someday (hardly).

 

I have always have a mixed feeling about commercialization of fan translation... but if in the future i can only read english translation by paying money, then I can always go to syosetsu and read it myself. I mean English is only a second language hardly ever used in my daily life...

 

<- Got no money myself, so I wouldn't ask for my readers to pay. If I do ask them, it's probably for nuffies as a joke on April Fools or something

 

Definitely drop it..

 

Business model translations are the worst. Translation for profit is exactly what gave rise to aggregator sites in the first place. Why? Author writes stories -> you translate it (acceptable) -> you sell the translation without permission (not acceptable) -> people read your translation (they're not in the wrong) -> aggregator sites steal your translation (you moan and whine like it's the end of the world).

When you make money off work you have no rights to make money over, is it any wonder that aggregator sites will make money off the work they have no rights over as well? The fan translation community has been around for more than a decade, yet aggregators only mushroomed out in the past 1-2 years, after Wuxiaworld commercialized their translations and every single xianxia translators followed suit.

It's not like we never had aggregator sites years ago. Off the top of my head, I can remember two, but their names escape me. But why weren't they successful? Because there was nothing to steal and they were losing money a lot faster than they were making them. Everything was offered for free and readers came to read at the source because they wanted to support the translator as the only payment translators wanted was 'thanks'. Sure, there were donation drives, but those were very rare, usually for medical fees, settling debts and server fees. Stop making money off fan translations and you will bleed them dry.

 

Learn a language or find it in Chinese. There are quite a few Chinese media items that aren't on the internet or only accessible by the Chinese pirates who know the secret sea charts. They don't have big piratebays but several small forum-bbs coves and even then the chance of stumbling on the item is small.

In scanlation there's one group monopolizing Bastard translation and charging people for it by reporting every competitor to license holders, pay them for English Bastard or bust. Don't know why or how the license holder isn't tracking down this group, especially when they're charging 10-30 per volume if I remember correctly. It doesn't apply here yet since there are no English license holders and Qdian seem more like the type willing to track down the competitor.

 

Nothing on the internet is inaccessible for free bro.
If it's considered valuable, it's easy to copy and replicate.

Let's suppose by some magic reason it wasn't though. I'd say defo nope to anything below a set standard, which would even include more casual novels like Mahouka, Re:Zero, and Long Live Summons all of which I enjoyed.

I'd consider paying for the likes of Transcending the Nine Heavens, ISSTH, Ze Tian Ji. And others I'd only read for a couple hundred chapters for example ATG & TMW but then I'd drop it and just look for spoilers.

Probably wouldn't read the likes of Coiling Dragon which was the novel that attracted most peeps to CN novels in the first place.

 

Donating money for early access / extra releases is fine.

But needing to buy access to a translation crosses some lines in terms of licensing and IP. At that point the translator essentially stole the work of the original chinese author, and is selling it for a profit without having officially licensed it.