Thoughts From Someone Working With Qidian

If their translator contracts are indicative of their corporate policies (perpetual clauses much) then their original authors have probably already signed off all their rights to their published works for a piddling remuneration from the chapter's word count (yes cn.qidian pays per word, so thank them for all the fillerly-goodness and overly verbose tirades and excessive re iterations of CN web authors) and a very small cut to subscriptions and merchandising if any (and only if they are popular enough).

"Owning" a work but having signed away your publishing rights basically just means asides from what you've agreed upon already at the beginning, you can't do shit with it anymore.

 

When I saw this thread I thought this would just be another propaganda thread. I'm sorry for thinking that. You put it really well and didn't defend them or outright just bash them. just stating the facts. I applaud you man.

 

I'll quote RWX from two different threads, since his answer clarifies some stuff (also mentioned by others) and I think we can agree that he is a reliable source of info on this:
"They also take complete ownership of all copyrights from authors. They have even put in some contracts stating that if you sign with Qidian, not only is this current book owned by Qidian, ALL FUTURE BOOKS YOU WRITE are owned by Qidian. How do they treat their authors? I recommend you learn Chinese, then search Baidu!"
And for the question about whether they license from authors:
"No, Qidian signs draconian terms even in China which basically states that the authors do not own the rights to their own novels; Qidian itself owns all the rights. A few 'big' authors are able to push back, but that's the standard contract."

I know that by now others also answered as well, just thought this adds a few more details that might be interesting.

 

not only that, but its just a bad business decision. if they were more accomodating and showed that they cared about the community, people would be much more approving and forgiving.

very good post right here. what surprises me even more than people dont seem to know anything about authors' end of things is that they post about it as if they do. i guess they just assume things are the same everywhere

 

Authors are bound by contract with qidian..

 

I feel like everyone is mad about the wrong things.

Imo we should be mad at how they treated the community with deception, trying to set us up against eachother and revoking their own contract with Wuxia World.

What everyone is mad about is Qidan's contract and pay, also how they are "selfishly" trying to make profit and not giving it to the community. But then again, who owns the rights to those novels here? Qidan does, now what does every company do with things they own? Make money, as much as possible, this is how capitalism works. It's not good for us, but they don't care, it's how they roll... And they are not the only one (looks at Kadokawa/Yenpress).

I'm not excusing them, it's just that I feel like we should be mad at the part where they didn't show us face and toyed with our feelings by setting us up. You really can't blame a monopoly acting like a monopoly.

 

The editorial wage is not competitive. And I can say that as someone particularly close to the publishing scene, and even closer to the webnovel scene (surprise). Webnovels or not, professional and freelancer editors, even the ultra-rare super-cheap ones charge at least $7 / 1,000 words.

 

You two are bit too late to say that to me.
Someone already said that and it was explained better than you too XD

 

It's not just toying, they are also trying to act like a tyrant and make a profit out of people's peaceful enjoyment.

 

The thing with this case is that WW had a contract with Qidian and Qidian just straight up lied and says they breaking the contract. I don't think fan translations of light novels had a contract, it was just a verbal agreement I believe. However, this doesn't mean I agree with how they took down fan translations of light novels, even worse is how they left them hanging like that without even continuing translations...

Also, he-man was translating ST on SPC first, but he never set up the system, RWX laid the groundwork for the system, and created it. Not a lot of people knew about SPC, however by creating a platform for solely for Xianxias, people were able to find out about it.

I truly think that without WW being created, the era of wuxias, xinxias, etc. would not exist for the world besides China. In fact, one of the reasons he created it was because he saw how much hype it was getting since he was a mod at SPC, and decided to show it to the world.

 

You dont work for Qidian! You work with someone that works with Qidian.

 

I know I'm late, it took some time for me to search for the exact quotes by @rwxwuxiaworld . I'm sorry that his explanation wasn't good enough for you... I thought it is useful to add it, but then I guess I was wrong.

 

you are not wrong. its just that there are too much thread about qi and ww lol

 

No, I totally appreciated it.
It's ok, at least you tried.

 

I have edited in the past,and I recognize the efforts. But still...I guess it depends on the chapter size. I did some 3 character chapters for free,because I felt that they were not worth even 5$. Ofc,as I am not from the US,in current conversion rate..5$ is a big deal in my mind.

 

I know, I've finally registered here because of this whole mess (I was always planning to switch from being just a lurker, but my laziness got the best of me until now) - and it's pretty damn difficult to follow all the threads popping up every 5 minutes about something related. Not to mention all the new comments...
I hope it will be over soon, but I really doubt it.

Story of my life

 

try waiting for a week and see what is gonna happen to all of these things

 

Ahem. A professional editor here. We don't charge per number of words or per page. We use an hourly billing scheme. That isn't even for us, that's just what firms and publishing houses use. Most editors either get a salary or a project fee + annual retainer contract.

The freelancers are the ones that use the per page or word count billing systems, and some of them honestly aren't worth the money.

That said. I wouldn't charge anyone translating a web novel real editing rates because it's simply unethical to do so. I don't think any other editor would either. You're not getting our full service for something like this, so it isn't fair to charge for it. It'd be batshit crazy to try and edit a chapter-by-chapter web novel translation like a real book.

 

But the OP is not part of Qidian, it's the translator.
The translator is the one paying him.
So Qidian doesn't have the right to whatever to him.xD he has no obligation to follow them he can post whatever he wants.

 

the op is the editor not the translator. yes, qidian wont pursue the matter to him. but qidian will "ask" the translator about him. so...