Thoughts From Someone Working With Qidian

From what I've seen, these 5 dollars are per chapter right? Considering the short length of chapters, 5 dollars is actually a hell of a sum. It shouldn't take you more than half an hour to edit a chapter. Especially not with the quality I've seen so far. If you're good, you could edit a chapter in 10-20 minutes, which nets you at minimum 15 dollars an hour.

Yeah, I kind of overstated it earlier by calling it "a hell of a sum", but it's an acceptable entry level pay for someone with no work skills or education.

 

Hi everyone,

From my experience of working with QI, I have to point out some misconceptions of the community on the editor's pay.

1. The time taken for an editor is entirely dependent on the translator's final quality as well as the editor's ability to edit/how detailed he or she wishes to edit. Detailed referring to rewriting certain sentences for the flow etc. This is very subjective and difficult to quantify. 5$ is far too little for a good editor and far too much for a sub par one. Qidian should rework how they intend to reward good editors in this sense.

2. Pay for TLs and EDs could be called way below market value. However, QIs intentions, from what I've seen, are to provide beginner TLs and EDs (or even veteran ones) with a definite base income. Everything extra on top of the base rate is what the TL or ED would supposedly earn assumig they were to start out on their own.

This is to say that fan translators making X amount of money before working with QI would get X + (number of chapters * rate) should they choose to switch over.

While their business practices may be questionable to readers, translators (my team included) are usually more than satisfied enough to jump over because we have been getting way less than what they have offered.

As an example, EFT made 5$ a month on our first novel from ads. We did not put up a Patreon when we began and only did so in February 2017 when we felt that the ad revenue would not even cover hosting costs.

One could say that it was a bad novel choice, or a slow release rate, or even the translator being not up to standard. Regardless of what it is, for QI to offer pay per chapter which could easily cover multiple months of hosting costs EACH chapter is more than sufficient to draw us over. Besides, we have been given the go ahead to host Patreons for each of our current novels, and they won't be taking a cent of it.

Personally, this may not be the best offer in the world. However, this is the only offer most of us (my team) has ever received.

 

editing a chapter only takes 10-20 minutes?

i think you are underestimating how editing works.

CN novels usually has 2000 words or more per chapter, and depending on translation quality, i think it could take at least an hour to edit it, and then another hour to make sure everything is correct.

so 5$ are too little, i'm not from a first world country, but a meal cost 2-3$ for me.

i think Qidian should change the pay, at least 5$/1000 words.

disclaimer :
i do not work for Qidian.

 

2000 words isn't a lot... If it takes you an hour to edit it, then you're just not good enough to be an editor.

 

its straight forward what these translators are doing in qidian... after all they all would have spoken honestly before signing with qidian but now they cant thanks to the contracts they signed. whether you currently work for qidian, or did in the past due to the clause of the contract none of them can say anything in anyway that harms the claims of qidian. Becuase of these very reasons anything these employees of qidian say ammounts to exactly Fart in regard to anything qidian does. theres a reason the saying signing with qidian is signing your soul to the devil holds weight

 

2000 word is four pages double spaced. Half an hour at most and that's if you're being careful about your academic paper that you need to hand in. More if you need to edit and format correctly.

 

Most companies that you work for make you sign agreements or take training that says you cannot post about them online ( I had to do that with my last job couldn't say anything about them on Facebook)
If you do you face termination.<.<

 

I think you're thinking of really nice full detail editing, most of the editing for these novels are more like proof reading. Quickly checking the spelling and making sure there aren't any glaring grammar issues. Making sure it read smooth and translator didn't brain fart on a section (this happens a lot =X)

So more like reading it carefully and correct any really notable issues.

 

Hate to break it to you but QI app is develop using base Qidian original app -more functionality, there won't be a new system for QI just a repurposed Qidian ones instead.

 

Please remind everyone that back when EFT getting $5 a month, you were a MTL site. You said it yourself that after joining Qidian that more translators join under EFT.

Therefore comparing EFT pre Qidian to post Qidian is biased. You can not say Qidian is the better choice since for most EFT translators, its the only choice. Given how well did new EFT translators perform in QI (multiple novels with proper schedule) who to say that EFT won't make more money using their very own platform?

 

Hi friend,

If we translate on our own, we are getting:
Ads + Patreon

With Qidian it is:
Ads + Patreon + Flat rate

How is that not better? We have one Patreon up for one of our novels which we feel has sufficient backup to even release additional chapters for (with QI permission and ahead of QI's releases).

The release of this Patreon is on our site for our readers and in the future, Qidian's when they are ready to update to the next version with Patreon support.

I won't go into detail about which novel it is since it would probably be considered advertising and I cant' remember if there are any forum rules stating against it. We do intend to slowly introduce Patreons for all our accounts though!

Thanks for you query about how things would work out. I'm glad that people are starting to consider things from the TL's point of view and not just WW/QI.

Tag me if there are any other questions, I don't often lurk around.

Thanks!

 

Questions, when you say ads you meant revenue from ads that appeared in your translated chapters right? Does your contract state clearly how much % you will get from ads & patreon? What about the duration of such revenue, as long as the translated chapter generate ads view you get the revenue or it wil be stopped after certain amount of time passed? By the way I remembered many people saying that QI doesn't have ads so when did the ads were added?

For me EFT would better off having their own everything in long run compared to grasping Qidian golden thighs. Of course I do understand how hard not relying to Qidian will be, especially early stages of the process but in the end, EFT gained will earn more recognition, revenue, fans, prospects & freedom.

 

The ads are not up yet and should be coming together with Patreon links in their next site update (I'm guessing July). Right now ads are (planned on) being used to sustain their company by reducing costs per chapter (flat rate). Should the ad revenue generate more than their flat rate to us, we get the ads revenue instead.

E.g. Flat rate 35$ (×20 min chapters) + Patreon 100/month = 800$/month.

Flat rate 35$ (×20 min chapters) + Patreon 100/month + Ad revenue 500$ = Still 800$ a month because Ad revenue is lower than flat rate.

Flat rate 35$/month (min 20 chapters) + Patreon 100/month + Ad revenue 750$ = 850$/month (Ad revenue exceeds flat rate, get ad revenue/dont get flat rate).

It was not stated how long ad revenues would run for. But translators and their teams are not idiots. Should the time come when we feel cheated, it is never too late to just stop translating. There's no term that binds a TL group to Qidian permanently. Now imagine what would happen to QI if all their TLs left suddenly...

The last point I want to make is that in addition to financial security, the most important thing to us is the legality of translating their content. WuxiaWorld is a big enough entity to resist any demands made, going so far as to fight lawsuits like a heroic xianxia MC. Most of us here are merely one of those tiny feeble existences that either party could wipe out with the flick of a sleeve. What wrong is there to legalize our translations at no cost at all?

 

I like how confident you sounded here. Even if there are term thay binds EFT to QI, your translators can just quit EFT like how they join it back then. QI aside, EFT won't do anything to hold its translators ransom or anything of the sort should they want to leave, after all you guys were friends, right?

 

Yes, there are no terms that bind a translator to EFT. They just need to give us a month's notice because we don't want our readers to stop abruptly. This may be different from how other TL groups operate though. I have no idea what their terms are so you have to assume that every TL/Novel under Qidian would have different terms.

To clarify, not all TLs were my friends. We have expanded to the point where we hire newcomers that we did not initially know personally.

 

I for sure will not support a translator team with they patreon/donatioan if they get pay already.better give other team who still need support to go around.qi contrac for third rate translator sure its good.

 

Fact being as we now know though... Wuxiaworld has bought the rights to the novels and even had oral agreements... it was these oral agreements that QI went back on their word... from what I know that is.