I want to translate Japanese -> English or English -> Turkish, but i am concerned about these: 1: Does getting permission to translate LN or WN costs money? 2: Do i have to get permission from the author or from the translator to translate an already translated novel? Anyways, thank you
If you want to license, yes. If you want to do fan translations then no. While it is good etiquette to get permission from the author, often times that will be rejected (and often times it isn't even up to the author but who he licenses to), but many translate without permission. As for translators, again, it is good etiquette to contact the previous translator but no one forces you. If they haven't released a translation for months though, usually you don't even have to.
Basically what everything the person above me said. It doesn't cost you any money if you just want to do fan translations, as 99% of the others do out there on NovelUpdates. Only a rare minority among us do sign a contract with the publishing company to get the license, which of course, cost money. You do not necessarily need to contact the author to get permission to translate, but again, it is good etiquette to contact the author to let him know you are translating his work. As for picking up ongoing translations? Well, there is an unwritten rule that states if the original translator has stopped translating for at least three months, the novel becomes free for all.
Also it's somewhat murky on getting paid. You can ask for donations to motivate yourself but you cannot ask for payment for chapters yet in the same instance you can offer to show unfinished chapters to patrons
The three months are grace period for the current translators to keep their projects, though, if you still wish to pick it up before 3 months grace period, feel free to contact the translators to get permission to avoid conflict.
I’m not a translator, I was just thinking of the painful minimum ninety day wait before a novel I like would be updated again.
You can put the author in legal jeopardy by contacting them. You can only plead willful ignorance when you are ignorant. This is for light novels or authors whose webnovels have been published as light novels and hence have signed contracts. Cheers! P. S. Expect to suffer from the same readers who are cheering you on right now when you don't release 30 chapters per month like English webnovel companies
Beware of flaming, fantranslations are not free from people that try to harass you for this or that motive.
I thought the 3 months is a grace period before you can post pickup request in the forums. The usual grace period to pick it up itself is 1-2 months, did this change at some point?
In the translator community there's this "3 month period" for picking up non updated novels, but that's more like "honor between translators". I believe, however, that NU doesnt adds your releases when there's another translator working on that same novel unless you start from chapter 1, or if the translator has said they are dropping the novel, or it's up for grabs. I'd recommend you to contact the translator of the novel you want to pick up, if you get no response, then that's also an implicit "go ahead". Like wujigege has said, it's better to not contact the author to avoid legal issues for you and the author. This might sound bad, but the other option is to pay for the rights of the translation and that will cost you a lot of money.
Not really, if the translator has said they are dropping the novel, if another translator starts from chapter 1, or if the translator is unreachable or not responding to attempts to contact them by other translator, I believe it's fine for that novel to be picked up. It can be picked up without any of these, but this is more like honor in the translator community. A translator that ignores this can sometimes get pretty harsh backlash for both the readers and the translators for "stealing" a project. I mean, we translators get harsh backlash for pretty much anything, however, we still continue.