I somewhat know about QI/Webnovel.com but I was wondering if you guys can tell me more? I just found out that one of the novels I was waiting on updates for is now behind a paywall there so I wanted to know just how legit this organization/site is. Most importantly, does any kind of support to that website get back to the original authors or are they just feeding off the efforts of both the original authors and the translators who already translated some of the stories on that site? I did see from a comment on that one novel I mentioned earlier that QI bought up shares of Munpia, the original publisher of that novel. If there's another thread that has already discussed these things, I couldn't find it so I would appreciate if someone directed me to it.
I am not sure but I think I resd that QI keeps all the money because the authors sell all their rights to QI. There should be a mega merge thread or something. This is also the reason QI is number 2 on my hate list. Number 1 is lim dall-young that sh*t. [Redacted]
Although I don’t know the answer, will you list the novel? It sounds like you are asking about a novel from a different publisher hosted on the Webnovel site. That’s why a specific novel might help. The only ones to know the truth might be Qidian and the author though. I’d say it depends on the contracts involved.
Might differ from CN author and english original author, though i'm not sure. Think someone posted a picture of the contracts long ago.
I remember vague details of the contract they had, I think that they get only paid if you are using paid stones to unlock.
I always thought the money goes to the authors as you can see they’re aware of their works being translated overseas. Look at the pages of some novels where they’ve written a small note to their foreign audience
Qidian is the official Chinese publisher of all the chinese novels they own, they expanded into translation for the international market. From what I heard, authors in China get a % of all the spirit stones spent (though I have heard there are minimums, not sure if that is true or not) In the case of Munpia, Qidian has expanded into translating Korean novels officially and yes they license the stuff. We don't know about the deal with Munipia but considering that Munpia has set some terms for distribution, (amount of minimum free chapters, plus static cost as far as I've seen). And considering that Munipa has to get approval from authors (aka, Munipia's position is weaker than most publishers), the authors do probably get something. But we don't know the exact details.
Yes and No , it depends on the contract. U have to understand that Most of the CN novels r already completed in China and tld work is different , technically the original authors don't have much rights claim on them ( might be different , I can't say for sure ) . Depending on the novel status of ongoing or completed the contract can differ. I don't know much about the tl contracts but I do know that the contracts for original authors state that the authors gives up the right to their work and only gets paid after 200 PAID stones have been used for the chapter and then gets paid per stone spent on the chapter. Again might be possible for there to be changes according to any negotiation done from authors but I don't see QI giving much up , of course there rore clauses in the contract but I won't list them here now just know they r dick moves by QI and the contractor might as well be a slavery contract
I post my story on webnovel (and Scribblehub), but for free. I've gotten emails from them about going in to a contract. If you sign a contract with them you'll get money. There are two kinds: fixed minimum income based on published chapters and flexible based on purchased chapters. But only chapters purchased using bought spirit stones, not free daily give away ones. That's right, free spirit stones don't get the author anything. At least you story is still your story, and as far as I know WN is fairly hands off in how you write your story. But by going into a contract you lose the right to publish anywhere else and lose all control over how your readers get access to your story. You can't even do an Amazon Kindle release. The fixed income requires an insane amount of chapter releases\word count too (explains the word padding in a lot of the CN stories). I can see why an author might contract with them, but I'd never do it. I only post there because the reader base is highly interactive. I'd rather just release a finished version of my story on Kindle or something rather than lose all my distribution rights. And as a reader I find their prices per chapter outrageous. They force readers to pay full price even for old stories, forever. Like. What the heck! This is why people end up pirating
They say a portion of the earnings go to the original author. They are the official publisher and also under the same company (or are the same company) that publishes the original chinese raws.
It's an official platform and presumably does have licenses for all content it hosts. That said, Qidian is of course not the most ethical company in the world, and China is a very different place than you might be used to. The only way you'd ever know for sure that authors are being paid - and how much they're being paid - is to ask them directly. Regardless, aggregators are definitely not paying authors, or translators, and you should not be using them. Even if you dislike Qidian, please remember that aggregators are a problem for the community at large - not *just* Qidian. As a general reminder to everyone here, please do not publicly advocate piracy on the forums.
Qidian/Webnovel.com is owned by Tencent. So you can see how reliable they are. If Tencent is not familiar then League of Legends should be as Tencent owns League of Legends. So yeah, they are a large company. Even Flying Lines is owned by a registered Chinese company but they allow posting of translated Japanese webnovel without permission: https://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/company-profile/002175.SZ Just because the company is a legitimate one, doesn't stop them from doing something bad. At least you have an address to report to the Better Business Bureau or your local law enforcement
I heard they get only 50 percent of paid stones. Thats before taxes So even less after taxes and the transfer costs. But they have minimum pay for certain word limits Aggregate sites are too famous now Just make a google search and u can easily find aggregates That shows how much ppl use them Its sad for the non qi translators that dont get ad revenue coz ppl have started visiting them more often
The Alexa rankings (which may not be completely accurate, but should paint a decent enough picture of the general situation) for the most common aggregators put them lightyears behind NU, WW and QI, among others. Sheer traffic isn't really the reason they show at the top of google search results; They aren't as heavily used as you'd think. But it's definitely true that their use is increasing, and in no small part thanks to Webnovel.
The novel in question is The First Hunter. I didn't want to go into specifics in the original post since I didn't think that would matter much in understanding QI/Webnovel.com in general. In the end, to access the translations I would have to go through Webnovel.com anyway so learning more here is just to determine how I feel about it. Truthfully, I wouldn't mind paying if I know at least some part of it can reach the original author. But if the money never goes back to them, then I'm feeling significantly more unwilling about this. But thank you to everyone responding to this thread! I have a much clearer idea of how it is now.