A new official publisher for Korean Novels?
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I wanted first to look for some upcoming Yen Press pre-orderes on Kindle but I came across the pre-order page for A Villainess for the Tyrant by a for me yet unknown publisher, Wordexcerpt LLC.
The only thing what I found are their Website and their official Twitter which has been up since Autumn 2020.
They have announced A Ton of official licenses from Fantasy Modern Romance, BL and Smut including rights to ebooks, print books, and audiobooks plus their own online platform.
This means there will be a huge wave of KR Novels and how the hell have I just heard of them today?!
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how the hell have just heard of them today?!
WordExcerpt is formerly a fan translation site that had a paywall for content. They've existed for a few years now; they were hosting unauthorized translations of Japanese web novels as recently as a couple months ago, including for series that had been officially licensed in English.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
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What's your point?
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@catstorm That they were a pay walled aggregator site for web novel translation of unlicensed and licensed works before they went to a legal business.
Means they didn't pop out of nowhere.
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I know what he was saying, the way he said it clearly indicates that he disapproves of the company.
My comment is a clear indication that I disagree with his position, and an opportunity for him to go into greater elaboration as to why that is his position.
If he doesn’t wish to engage in that conversation he can simple ignore my comment and leave it at that.
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I suppose they might survive though if they were previously paywalled. Other sites that have tried to go legit have tended to fail hard because their userbase abandons them once they start charging for access to their greatly reduced legit content when they had previously been "free" to use.
Personally I'd have a somewhat negative opinion of this company if they aren't compensating the license holders of all the content they've been ripping off up until now. That's almost like if a drug cartel suddenly decided to go legit one day using the money they'd been getting from their illegal drug trade to finance their new operations.
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What title licenses have they announced aside from the ones here?
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@catstorm The "point" is that a question was asked, and @myskaros answered it. The fact that you didn't know about them means that you weren't trolling internet looking for illegal translations - congratulations.
The answer did not call for the company to be crushed mercilessly, and all their customers be cursed to reading machine translated web novels (truly terrifying punishment). If you interpreted it that way, well, that's your interpretation.
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@catstorm said in A new official publisher for Korean Novels?:
My comment is a clear indication that I disagree with his position, and an opportunity for him to go into greater elaboration as to why that is his position.
When they went public with their turn to a legal venture, they still had the entire Seirei Gensouki web novel unofficial translation available on their site, which JNC had licensed years ago. I asked them about it on Twitter, in response to their announcement that they were going legal, and instead of taking it down immediately, they referred me to some generic announcement post that did not at all address why they were hosting illegal content on their now-legal website.
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I remember the company. Their "quality" services were atrocious and rarely got better despite the passage of time.
I do not have any hopes in regards to the quality of their current repertoire unless they improved significantly.
Done of they key factors which drew me to J novel were the previews but also how they brought in the translator for Rokujouma to continue the series. Being aware of that quality, it gave me confidence to give the company a chance.
Even Sol Press for all their faults had some quality controls... Actually better than One Peace going from some volumes of Tate no yuusha.Their licenses seem poor, though my Korean is non existent, I have read a few series, and none of those are what I would call "must reads" let alone "must buy" and I've bought many a book on a whim (stares at the 2k plus collection/bookshelves)
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@myskaros said in A new official publisher for Korean Novels?:
that did not at all address why they were hosting illegal content on their now-legal website.
That's good to know. I'm not going to support a "legal" site that's still engaged in piracy.
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@HarmlessDave To be fair, they did end up taking it down after I sent another tweet kind of rolling my eyes at them.
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@catstorm said in A new official publisher for Korean Novels?:
I know what he was saying, the way he said it clearly indicates that he disapproves of the company.
My comment is a clear indication that I disagree with his position, and an opportunity for him to go into greater elaboration as to why that is his position.
I am not Myskaros but I hope to convey what I think about it. So you disagree on his negativ view of a site which takes (in many cases) copyrighted works illegally or without consent, translates them and want people to pay money for this? All the while withholding royalties for the author? Sorry but I don't get your point. It is like advocating that you can pirate movies as the movie industry is a money grubber.
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No but they aren't doing that anymore, are they?
If they have stopped doing shady stuff then I give them the benefit of the doubt, and support them in trying to bring k-novels to the west, which is a medium that is not being adequately made available to western audiences at the moment.
If we were to shut down every company in the Anime/manga/LN business who did shady stuff or employed people who did shady stuff we would be shutting down practical every company in this industry, Including J novel club.
Crunchy roll started as an illegal stream and fan sub site, hell this company was founded by someone who started out doing fan subs, Invaders of the Rokujouma they used the the fan translator, yes J novel payed royalties retroactively but they endorsed the work of an illegal translation.
So my point is, I look to the present and future not the past.
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@catstorm said in A new official publisher for Korean Novels?:
No but they aren't doing that anymore, are they?
I mean... they are. Just under a different site so it doesn't get associated with their legal venture.
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@catstorm Would be nice if it was this way. But they still continue with their old site as far as I read. And really. What would you think about people which gets a notification from license holders and still host those materials?
