LCD The Legend of the Dragon King

Discussion in 'Latest Chapter Discussion' started by Estarossa, Jan 24, 2016.

  1. Opjohnaexe

    Opjohnaexe Well-Known Member

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    While I agree wholeheartedly, since it's a webnovel it doesn't have the same requirements on earnings that normal books do, so they could in effect release the chapters cheaper and instead earn due to fans reading more chapters (they don't have to print and sell books after all, the prices of storing the data of an entire web novel is essentially nothing compared to an actual book), but if it was more fair, I'd be all for paying for it, the problem is just that the price is bloated, and that the translation scene is abused. There is to the best of my knowledge no respect from Qidian towards the translaters, that's what really irks me, a publishing firm can be in a virtuous relationship with translators / authors, it doesn't have to be an abusive one.

    For the record I've argued for the concept of paid novels all the way since Qidian first showed interrest in the western scene, my problem is just that Qidian's system is exploitative, and not one that fosters goodwill, if they had worked properly and respectfully with their partners, and didn't make dicisions which screwed everyone but themselves over, I propably would have been paying money by now, I just don't desire to support a company that doesn't do so.
     
  2. Wujigege

    Wujigege *Christian*SIMP*Comedian

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    If you are looking for virtue in business then you are building sand castles in the air
    Reality is cruel. Virtuous people fail in business
    There is a reason lawyers, doctors and priests have oaths but businessmen don't.
    It's a fool's errand to look for virtue
    I judge businesses on how they treat content producers
    Qidian makes authors into millionaires
    Amazon turns them into sweatshop workers
    Only fools think Amazon is good for anyone even readers: when authors get fed up of being exploited Kindle Unlimited will be useless if authors don't join.
    Most traditional publishers have gone bankrupt. That model won't survive.
    Qidian model is better because although it's exploitative translators and Authors can get rich off it
    It's not perfect, but it's better.
    It turns books into free to play games.
    Spending $0.0010 per chapter feels better than shelling out $10 for a book you might not finish
     
  3. Opjohnaexe

    Opjohnaexe Well-Known Member

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    I personally judge a business on how it treats its content producers, its clients and its own future. With an exploitative model like Amazons, they're really just digging their own grave for the future, yes they might earn large amounts of money in the here and now, but in the future it'll die due to changes in consumer desires and wants, Qidian is doing the same (albeit not quite as badly, I will give you that), because while they might make some authors into millionaires they screw over basically everyone else they can get away with.

    As for whether or not it's possible to make a virtuous business, I believe it is. An example on how to do it with the webnovel scene would be as follows:
    A publisher takes on some authors, those authors produce content, translators translate the content if necessary, the customers pay to read this content. So far it sounds very similar, but the devil is in the details.

    Such a publisher would of course have the rights to a work, but they could co-own the rights together with the author, so the ball's not entirely in their court, beyond that they could supply guidelines for how the work should be produced, for example enforcing sick-days as well as holidays (the need for these is to avoid the authors literally working themselves to death).

    The same clauses would obviously be true for the translators, and while the translators wouldn't earn as much as the author, they should however earn a fair share too, as while they might not have created the work, a translator has the important job of properly portraying the story in the new language (after all if people genuinely don't care about the quality of the translation, they could just use machine-translation).

    As for the readers, they would be given fair and reasonable prices, expecting the same costs as for a written published work (physical copies), is entirely unreasonable, also if the content is too expensive people will find ways to not pay, of course some people will always do this, but trying to get money out of that group is a battle that will never be won, on the other hand if the content is properly priced, most people would pay for it. And a proper price in this case might be very little per reader, but since it's a webnovel format quantity of readers could very well win over quality of higher payments per read chapter.

    Another option would be "pay what you want" above a certain minimum, this will satisfy both people with more and people with less money, and again some people will pay the absolutely minimum regardless of options availible, but that doesn't mean everyone will, to the best of my knowledge I believe most people would pay a fair amount for a story, as long as they feel they get what they pay for.

    In the end we'd then get to the pay-split ratios, I believe it should be a case whereby 50-60% should be split between the translator and the author (obviously with the author getting the majority, but not any more 4/5ths, 'cause otherwise you end up with the authors exploiting the translators), and the publisher taking the rest.

    My last reason for believing what I do, is that the ownders of GOG, once tried to launch its business in poland, but people were used to not paying for games, so immediately slapping high prices on content just drove them further into piracy.

    If you really want to work against piracy, the only way to do so is to provide a genuine proper alternative that's not exploitative and fair priced. Because otherwise people will continue doing what they've always done, which helps noone.

    So no I don't believe a business which only works hard to enrich itself as well as making a select few authors rich, but abusing everyone else to be a good model, it might be better than certain worse alternatives, but that's never an argument for keeping something.
    Medieval Feudalism might be better than Ancient Tribalism, but that doesn't mean it's better than modern systems of government. Feel free to disagree with me if you want to, it's your right after all, but I just cannot accept the idea that we have to "settle for this model" because it's not as bad as the other models out there.
     
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  4. Wujigege

    Wujigege *Christian*SIMP*Comedian

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    Many are using Amazon as a standard to judge Qidian for being too pricey. I am all for Virtuous business but when your competition is Qidian and Amazon who are both basically cheating the system, it is very hard to succeed.
    No matter how fair you price your products, Amazon will be cheaper
    No matter how well you pay translators and authors, Qidian will always pay them better.
    That is why I feel it is a losing battle
    I am a dreamer so I am looking for an alternative and been discussing with people like you to get ideas
    I will be contacting Japanese authors of manga on free to upload sites like pixv and then licensing them and translating them to English
    I will be launching my own magazine with a $5 or more per month Patreon tier to get the magazine a month in advance while publishing it on a website for free. Based on the total amount I earn per month, I can increase the number of stories in the comic/manga magazine.
    Maybe we can talk so more.
    You can shoot me an email
    https://asianhobbyist.com/contact-us/
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2018
  5. Suijin

    Suijin Blood God [Medic]

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    screw this novel, I give up from reading it
     
  6. greet9006

    greet9006 New Member

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    Ummm.... when will the updates start releasing again?? It's been like 10 days since the latest chapter.....
     
  7. FenixR

    FenixR Well-Known Member

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    Today i can declare, i give up, the wuxiaworld release its way too fucking slow and i can't wait until i die by a thunderbolt or isekai'd by truck-chan to finally read this series completely. i understand the translator being a student and shit, but 1 fucking chapter every 2 weeks or something its fucking stupid.

    That is all.
     
  8. Opjohnaexe

    Opjohnaexe Well-Known Member

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    They did it, they finally did it. Qidian has retroactively locked all the chapters of LotDK from chapter 400+ onwards, I knew it'd happen, so it's nice to have ones assumptions confirmed.