Anyone else annoyed by Licensing?

Things take time for novel to come out... translating, editing, inserting illustration, proofreading, compiling, printing, and some other's bureaucratic stuff before they when for publishing... just wait for 100 year's everything will surely come out!!!

 

I agree with you, but at the same time, it has to be understood that this is an inherent risk with hard copy translations such as they are doing. As soon as they print it, it's not like they can come back 2 weeks later and say they found some clarification in a later chapter, give us your copies back so we can fix them. In fact, if I had to guess, that's part of reason their translations take so long, it's not just intentional slowing for monetary gain. They are translating dozens of chapters ahead to see if there is anything that will change what they have already finished translating. At some point however, they can't wait any longer and have to release. Do you expect them to translate the entire series, then edit for inaccuracies and then release?

I think this would be slightly less of an issue if they only worked of Light Novels instead of Web Novels, but that only alleviates some of the problems. Short of asking the fan translators for their glossaries on each story, they are inherently flawed. If they were only doing ebooks, this would not be as big a concern, as using most ebook retailers, they allow for auto-updates to purchased content after the fact to fix things. Then they could wait to sell hard copies until the series is completely translated and errors resolved.

 

Hell yeah! SAO, Accel world and Mahouka no rottessi(not sure and bothered about spelling) was the bloody worst when they got licensed. they were at their peak of popularity and translation speed. and the story got so bloody good it was the worst i been trying to find some underground translations.

 

I remember back when I was in JR high I saw the first volume in a series that really caught my interest being translated in to English, by my senior year they still hadn't finished the second volume, but the comics that were coming out at the same time all were in like there 4th or 5th volume ...

 

I'm not annoyed by licensing; it's good for authors to get their work professionally sent overseas. I am, however, annoyed by the fact that the translation community rolls over and dies even when years later they're not releasing the series at anything like a decent pace. It's not as though it's impossible to spread chapters around that they don't want you to; just look at the fan translated manga/anime scene. From their viewpoint, they have no reason to release faster, because a quick email is all it takes to shut down a years-long project by the fanbase. Unfortunate.

 

the real kicker is that these things make money because of the f an translations. Anime and manga would never have gotten a foothold here without fan translation. They wouldn't even know what to buy and bring over without them. This is u.s. by the way. Those that really like the series would buy it after watching or reading it elsewhere. If they were to kill the fan sites their profits would disappear. Fast. Those sites are where people go to find new stuff. I think the companies should work with the fan translators. They would save money and time. Everyone wins. Wuxia world did that with mga.

 

Personally, I like the fan translations, but generally, I don't buy liscensced translations because:

• The stories just aren't good enough
• Too many volumes
• To read the whole of something like Coiling Dragon TLed, it would probably cost $200+

 

I am not just disappointed but am also heartbroken! My reading life been practically ruin now! I can't enjoy Manga and Lns to the fullest now. To be honest all I see is Chinese on NU. Not that I hate it but most of them are just polygamy harems and get repetive. Its predictable ^.^.

 

Buy it over time or at least your favorite sections. Buying a bit of the series is supporting the authors work.

 

Depends. If it's just licensing for the sake of licensing, then yeah. But Yenpress is decent so...

The fact that you can't even finds them shows that you didn't even bother to try with google.. or even this site.

 

not really, no. its inevitable. those book were made to get published.

 

What's really annoying is when they do a botch job then drop the series and refuse to let anyone else have it, including fan translators. The companies that go north Korea on the idea of anyone but them possessing something that they've claimed ownership of.

 

Mahouka fan translations are already done vol 17 since a while ago. The popular LN's will still get translated by fans, except translations moved 'underground'.

The main thing I have against licensing is slow release speed, wish Yenpress released every three months instead of four- that way we'd get 4 volumes a year instead of three. Already got Mahouka vol 1 and Overlord vol 1, but now waiting until September for next release.

 

I didn't get annoyed by the licensed company. probably because it hasn't hit the series I really like yet.

Yeah I read Overlord as well but I am not too into it.

 

It's easy: read the book before you begin to translate it. Or, don't blame others for your fault.

+ you can donate to support the writer witouth buying its books.

 

I believe you have some wrong ideas there.

First, that "licensing companies" you use. Those companies are not "licensing companies", but "publishers". The ones specialized in foreign literatue make money by renting the publishing rights of foreign works in the countries they plan to publish it in, spending money on staff to get them translated and set and then selling them. Once covered the production costs, the profit gets divided between the right holders, which are usually the publisher in question, the original publisher, the author and the illustrator (if they keep the original illustrations, then the original illustrator, and if not, then the local illustrator).
Now, with the exception of web novels (which don't fall under the scope of licenses), authors write in order to make a living. There are already several behaviors, like second-hand selling, libraries and lending (and in Japan, stand-reading), that cut profits and which are accounted for; despite those, regular authors can still make a living if they have some background (if not, they have to suplement their livelyhood with part-time or full-time jobs). Fan-translating works and sharing them online may cut a deep gash in that livelihood.
There are three kinds of fan-translators:
-The moral type, who translates works they want to share with everyone but cannot be found otherwise in a readable language. They stop when the work becomes available in said language. Their work tends to catch sight of publishing companies as potential projects. Nothing more to add.
-The profiting type, who uses the translations to earn money. Some may lean closer to the moral type by working on commission and stopping once the work becomes available, but even them don't make it into that category since the profit is 100% for them. They may discourage publishing since people don't want to pay twice, and sometimes the quality of the work is not compensated with the price.
-The anarchist type, who just don't give a d*mn. They can double as the profiting type and they don't respect licensing. Most usually, they also don't respect the work and offer from sh*t-quality translations to sh*t-quality fanfictions under the name of "translation" (meaning anything in common with the source work is purely coincidental). They not only discourage publishing, but may also negatively affect the work's reputation (there are many a novel whose popularity and rating was hurt badly due to chapters published by this kind).

All in all, unless writing is just a side job for them, so earnings from it are just extra pocket money, or they make their money with related merchandise, in which case they may even support fan translations, a drop on sales (=earnings) may force an author to drop a series or even quit writing, so I ask you: what would you rather, pay for reading a series you like (or making a free library card and bother to use it) or have it axed for good?

PS. The most sensible complain is the slowness of most publishers, but that stems from 1) difficulty to get a hold of proffessional translators and 2) the extra work outside translating that web-based translators don't have to mind.

 

as much as i hate it...
i need to accept it with an open mind after i scream F**** internally

 

You are assuming anyone who reads it would have bought it. Fan translations are the only reason these series are even known here. The authors lose nothing and gain the possibility of a new profit source because someone put it where a lot of people could read it for free. That's how lord of the rings got to America. Look what happened after.

 

They're not complaining about paying for it, though? They're complaining about the slow speed, and sometimes even no apparent progress at all,
Since they have the license, if it happens it means the translation to said language is practically dead for good

 

i have a question.... if something gets licensed do they take the raws too down or only the fan translated ones ? because i think that if i would try hard enough i could learn japanese in one year and start reading the raws.... (i learned english in one month and german in 2 months..... )