Question Getting author permission

So I just saw a post about asking the author for permission to translate their novel. It never occurred to me that was something I was suppose to do, but it makes sense. I tried googling the author, but I can't find a way to contact her. Honestly my Chinese isn't good enough to go searching through websites......Do you guys know any common websites where author's have their profiles?

 

That state of fan-translations, everyone.

 

you know, rather than contacting the author which usually don't have the right to publish their work, why not contacting the publisher?

 

atleast avoid QI since its quite likely they will poach ur project after a while

 

no point contacting the publisher. the response for individuals will always be a resounding "NO".

the only people who get told yes by publishers are well settled and sturdy foundation groups like WW and GT etc who have done the hard work, gathered the fan base and now only needs permission to continue and make money to keep things going. in these cases the publishers don't need to risk going outside their field of experience and can take a reasonable fee to allow the groups their work to be acknowledged.


if you can, ask the author, and ideally get permission. they will likely only agree however if you show a high level of ability and skill in translation. so it's better to start and ask forgiveness than to wait and be turned down or overtaken by someone else cause people got tired of waiting.

 

Not really. Slime Tensei’s (the one with Rimuru as MC) translators have a written permission from the author to translate the novel.

 

If you're just translating temporarily then you don't need to contact the author.

 

In the end it depends on the author. Whether they’ll mind you translating it or not

 

What's QI?

So if one says yes and the other no, which party gets the final say?

 

Depends on who has the rights?

 

The one who actually owns the copyrights holds the final say. Chinese webnovels trend towards publishers owning the work, but there have been changes.

 

Is this what people usually do?

 

Hmm, depends whether you can stomach going ahead first? Well, there are quite a few novels that have been translated halfway that drop due to the author not giving permission so...

 

As long as you are not planning on doing it for commercial purposes, I reckon it should be fine to translate it for fun without permission from the authors as long as you credit them properly. Just put up clauses saying:
- you are just translating for fun
- you tried but was unsuccessful in contacting the author for permission
- you are okay with the author/ publisher contacting you at anytime to stop.

 

Ok thank you all! If I can figure out how to contact the publisher and author I'll do so. Until then I'll do as @Retrospect said.

 

There's a huge difference between JP and CN novels

 

Have you read their translations? the quality is really good for the most part. it's easy to read and follow and despite having 2 alternating groups they work in coordination and there is no feeling of dissonance between them. in the case of slime Tensei, it is japanese and the authors tend to retain the foreign publishing rights thus it is fine, but practically all chinese or korean publishers take the foreign rights so asking the author won't help you.

ultimately every contract is different, so it's a case of knowing which publisher and author used, or the medium their story was shared on, and what the typical policy of that group is regarding publishing rights. the vampire diaries is a western case of "the author doesn't own the rights to their own story" and so the author can actually be replaced entirely because the publishers own the whole series, in title and concept. tis called "work for hire" contract i think as compared to "publisher an author's work"

indeed. 90% of translations are by people either using machine translation and/or doing it without having even tried to contact the author or publishers to ask if it is ok. the typical trend in life is that forgiveness is easier to obtain after the mistake than it is to obtain permission for said mistake before it occurs.


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If you translate as a hobby, there is no compulsion or need for contacting the rights holder, the issue is when you get donations or ad revenue etc because then you leave the creative copyright and enter into monetization. the territory where anyone who feels slightest will start to dish out DMCA's and make your hobby a whole lot less enjoyable.

 

You have to be mentally prepared though... Downside to this will be:
- you will be getting more troll/ scam msgs or emails from self-acclaimed authors/ publishers
- you will be forced to receive Chinese spam emails without being able to filter them out… just in case one of them is really from a genuine CN author/ publisher….
Just remember to take to the forums whenever in doubt.

 

Ignore anyone talking about talking to the publisher.

If you want to ask for permission, go to the author.

The publisher won't give you permission, period, you aren't a rich owner of a huge group to be able to pay for the rights of the translation like RWX is.

Asking the author is the ethical thing to do, if the author doesn't have the publishing rights, they may give you permission, but they can't give you the official rights for it.

In other words... What most authors can do, is give you their blessings on your translation. It is a nice thing to have, but by no means necessary... It is more ethical to translate only if you have it though.

 

As an amateur translator without any prior experience, it is my personal opinion that translating without the author's permission is wrong. They are the owners of their story and their ideas.

As for contacting Chinese authors, this is all I can think of right now:
1. Try to look around their profile page on the official publisher's website for links to email/QQ/weibo/etc.;
2. Contact them on social platforms like QQ and weibo if you find an account with the same user name (tip: weibo did not work for me on desktop, I had to use the mobile app, and you can get it to work without a phone in mainland China);
3. Search their names or the names of their book on baike, baidu, or just google;
4. Make a thread on baike or baidu or some similar website asking for help contacting the author (in Chinese);
5. Ask for help from a native Chinese speaker.

In regards to contacting publishers, I found the Paper Republic website very interesting: Resources for Publishers and Resources for Translators. This website was first brought to my attention when I googled the translator of the e-book for The Recording of the Hairpin (or something like that), which is being sold on Amazon.

Here are links to some of the key articles:
What do you mean you don't know who owns the rights?
How do Chinese publishing houses work?
How much should I charge for translation? (This has a template for signing a book translation contract with Chinese publishers)
How do I put a pitch together? (Although this is for contacting English publishers, it's resume help might be useful)

Basically, I got permission from the author by messaging her in weibo with a paragraph waxing poetry about her book and a paragraph stating that I would not profit from the book - with both a Chinese and English version. However, the fact that the book is free (non-VIP) and almost ten years old should also be taken into account.