Don't Be a Dong - Translating in 2019

This was originally meant as a reply post to @Wujigege in his thread, but it got long enough and detailed enough that I figured it was worth a full post of its own. I'm famous for occasional long posts, and this is definitely one of them! While a lot of the content is going to use his site as an example of what NOT to do, there's no malice in it and I hope it's helpful in some way to someone, if not him; he's opined that I have nothing useful to say to him because 'managing a big site is completely different from managing a small one'. To me, however, it's not about being a 'big' site or a 'small' site, it's about one word - value.

All businesses (and even all interpersonal relationships) thrive on that one word - value. For a relationship or a business to survive, you have to be able to provide value to others. In relationships, value can take the form of advice, friendship, sympathy, or just plain being fun to be around - we all have seen people who are just 'takers' and energy vampires who give nothing back, and those people rarely have many friends. The same is true in business. You have to provide value, and when you truly do, you often don't even have to ask for money - people will be breaking down your door to give you money, for fear that you'll stop providing that value.

But here are two other truths - one, value is comparative, not absolute, and two, it takes investment to generate value. What do I mean by this?

Imagine you come into a small village and open up a small, mom'n'pop convenience store, the first of its kind in the entire village. You might only be open a few days of the week, and the prices might be a bit high, but you are providing enormous value to the people of that village. Now imagine trying to do the same in a big city with 24-hour Walmart Supercenters, 7/11 convenience stores, etc., all of which are providing more product, more varied products, and better prices. How much value are you providing then? Very little.

The former was the translation scene from a few years ago. The second is the translation scene now. As a result, it's much more complicated to generate 'value' now than it was several years ago. What I did for CD in 2014, 'three chapters a week plus sponsored', wouldn't even come close to flying in the modern era! To provide true value for readers in this era, you now need to be translating full-time, 1-2 chapters a day, every day, because that's what the 'Walmarts' of the industry are doing. Otherwise, there are literally dozens of novels that are being translated at a much faster pace; why should readers spend their valuable time reading your novels instead of someone else's? This is what I mean by 'value is comparative.'

Herein lies the problem for sites like Asian Hobbyist. I say this with no malice at all, but it provides little to no value for anyone. The owner is focused on chasing revenue instead of building up true value or investing. For Wuxiaworld, I was able to get away investing time instead of money - since I am a translator, I invested a great deal of my own time in generating (what was then) great value for readers by steadily doing multiple chapters a week. Wujigege is clearly not a translator, so if he wants to be able to generate that true value, he has to invest real money - but that's clearly something he's not capable or willing to do.

I will repeat: Asian Hobbyist is providing almost no value to anyone. It is providing no value to rights holders - it has no licenses, and appears to have no plans to acquire licenses or even talk to rights holders (he's expressed an opinion that he's just going to go for novels he feels are less likely to get DMCA'd). It is providing little value to readers - it constantly drops novels, releases chapters slowly (due to lack of investment), splits them to get extra ad revenue, and the owner often berates readers who complain. It provides little value to truly invested translators - translators are paid peanuts and will be dropped like a flash if the book doesn't get popular (by its standards). And as a result, it provides almost no value to its owner - it has twelve current translations, but the combined Patreon for all of them generates ~$500 a month, with a grand or two of advertising on top and some donations. In comparison, there are individual websites/blogs that have Patreons that make $4000+ each month for that one novel they are working on. Even by the standard of a small site, AH is doing horribly.

Why? Because the other small sites are providing great value. Asian Hobbyist is not.

So here's my impartial read on the current situation for Wujigege - he has very few readers, is considered a joke by serious translators on any major site (ask around), is often vilified by people on the largest webnovel forum in the world (NUF), and is ignored by rights holders... but if ever by some black magic any novel gets popular enough to make real money, they'll just DMCA him and take the novel over or license it (for moolah) to legitimate sites.

This is a terrible position to be in, and putting yourself in a position like this means you really should not be commenting about businesses and giving really terrible business advice to, well, anyone.

And herein comes the strange title to this post, "Don't Be a Dong". There is a phrase in Chinese: Dong Shi Imitates the Wince (东施效颦). Because really, 东施效颦 is exactly what Wujigege is doing every time he posts on 'business' on this forum. Now, there's a story behind this phrase! In ancient China, there was an incredibly hot beauty, ranked top 4 in all of Chinese history, called Xi Shi. Xi Shi was super hot, but she also had an illness that caused her a lot of pain, so every time it flared up she would wince in pain. However, she was so hot that people would say even her wince just made her even more beautiful. Now, a terrifying ugly woman named Dong Shi heard this and assumed, "Hey, I bet it's the wince that causes everyone to think Xi Shi is hot! I can wince too!" So she went around grimacing her hideous face all day long, causing everyone around to barf even harder and eventually kick her out of town. So therein lies the phrase - Dong Shi Imitates the Wince.

So what I'm trying to say is, don't be a Dong (Shi). If you try to just imitate what others who are more successful than you are doing, you might end up just imitating a lot of their flaws without their pros to balance it out. That's kinda what Wujigege does on the forum when he talks about 'this is how business works' 'companies have to cut costs', blah blah blah. Much of what he says (not all, to be fair) is just wrong on so many levels. Focus on value, value, value, not being a Dong (Shi)!

Now, because this post really ISN'T meant to be hatchet job on anyone, I want to give some practical advice to Asian Hobbyist or anyone else considering a webnovel site. No surprise - generate VALUE, to someone at least.

Provide Real Value to Readers: Instead of irregularly updating twelve novels, cut it down to just two but update them regularly, twice a day. Throw all your translators on those two novels, and I guarantee you will do much better than you are now. This will require more bookkeeping and some sweet-talking to translators on your part but doesn't require much extra money, if any.

Provide Real Value to Translators: If you aren't a translator yourself but are in the translating game, you need to invest in your translators. That means paying more money, most likely up front, to incentivize them so you can build up that audience and provide more value and stability to your readers, ideally at least one chapter a day for each novel you do. These WILL be loss-leaders early on, but you will hopefully make that money back later in the form of more things to read and a larger, more loyal readership. QI, for all its many warts, understands this and has plowed seven-digits into translation fees, if not more. I don't expect anyone else to do it on that scale, but something is better than nothing.

Provide Value to Rights Holders/Other Sites: There is absolute value (but no comparative value) in your translations, so how about either selling or sub-licensing them to rights holders or other sites that can get licenses? Get them pay you for the right to host these translations on their site as well. It could be WW, Volare, QI, whatever. This allows you to defray the costs of translation and plow more money back into your translators, which incentivizes them to translate more which also gets more readers, promoting a virtuous cycle.

And I'll put my money where my mouth is. If Wujigege carries out just two of these three changes for a period of three months, I guarantee that readership and revenue will double at least. If it doesn't, I'll pay you (this is a public promise) $1500, the equivalent of three months of your current Patreon. If it does, just toss me $100 as a way of saying thanks; you should easily be able to afford it since you'll be making more money. Just consider this my way of helping out and move things in a better direction for a part of this small community we have. I respect that you are on your grind, even if what you are doing really isn’t working.

Or, you can just continue doing what you already are doing, but I am absolutely convinced that three months from now you'll be right where you are, if not worse.

Value, value, value. Remember this word, future translators and site owners! And remember: Don't be a Dong (Shi).

 

i was here™

 

oh boi

 

Another post by rwx saying indirectly how godly of a person he is and his site is.

 

Dong! Ha, ha, ha.

 

Not really though. He's just voicing everyones thoughts on AH, just in a long ass post form. I agree that i have yet to meet anyone that genuinely likes AH. Yes a lot of people have come to understand they're profit motivated but there is literally no one that ever said "Gee i love me some 'teasers' that get dropped a couple releases down!"

 

Remember guys/gals Don't be a Dong.

 

I miss flood releases, like when a translator didn't update for a week or two and suddenly releases 20 or so chapters at once, it just makes your day happy.

 

I was here before the war

 

polar vortex everyone... storm is coming... take shelter here..

 

too long, no potato

 

I don't understand why he has to make a thread about it instead of sending him pm.
He probably wants to snatch something and does it in roundabout way.
Rwx and throwing shade at competitors, name a more iconic duo.

 

Don’t mind him, he just doesn’t like me.

I was thinking of pming him, but he clearly expressed no interest, so I figured I’d make my thoughts public. Might help some people be a bit more successful. As for being a competitor, no offense, but I don’t really think he is...

 

sadly the only reason i don't read on AH, is because there are 6 ads or more a page and a chapter is usualy split in 3 pages just to have a total of 18 ads each chapter....does it matter you ask? well, sometimes when i tryed to read a chapter i forgot it's split and end skippig a lot without realising...and the ads is annoying when i use my phone.....

 

Even though i'm not in "the translating game", it was insightful regarding business in general.