Coiling Dragon by I eat Tomatoes

Since WuxiaWorld is translating the novel at speed light if we bribe him, I've been reading it to the point i got addicted to it.

What's the story is about?

The story takes place in a fantasy world where magic and martial arts coexists. Where lifespans can reach a few hundred years and where the strongest rules. The story follows from childhood Linley who is the heir of a 5000 years ancient clan that is now in ruin and how he will shake the world as he trains to become the strongest Magus in the world...maybe history.

It's an action-packed story with good character growth. Although, if you read lots of xianxia's genre, there will be a few themes that will come back.

It can be read in this site, btw.

Man...this is crazy how much people donate and how many chapters are out in just a few days.

Yep. It's pretty crazy. But it only works because he's willing to dedicate the time each day to translating if the donations are there.
And the people will run out of money eventually I think, lol.

I'm more worried about possible fraud. Sometimes online people pay you with money that doesn't actually exist. But it takes a while before the banks/paypal/etc notice. And in the case of paypal, if memory serves, they always take the money back for things like donations since there was nothing physically sold.

Hum, that is definitively worrisome if fraud do happen. To do fraud to get a bonus chapter is kind of...petty and pitiful.

Yeah, the efforts put into translation is pretty intense. Since this is not quick task.

I only worry about it because so many people are donating, and some are donating multiple times, some even donated the price of a full chapter.
$80 is a lot of money to throw out for one chapter. So it makes me curious. But hopefully it's just paranoia talking.

lozlo wrote:I only worry about it because so many people are donating, and some are donating multiple times, some even donated the price of a full chapter.
$80 is a lot of money to throw out for one chapter. So it makes me curious. But hopefully it's just paranoia talking.

Many people that have jobs and not many other expensive interests can easily indulge 80$ once in a while in something they love.
Moreover you aren't funding RWZ alone and a single donation made by many people goes a long way in bringing you enjoyment(chapters).

Cool story bro. Hope it's true. But don't be surprised if you find out a couple people really did what I said.

And I don't donate. For two reasons. One being that I'm poor and can't really afford even half a chapter.
I don't begrudge RWZ his donations though, which is why I hope no one is cheating.

80$ is extremely fair for that kind of thing. The people who translate manga often charge 1$ per page of translation or 3$ per page for the whole thing and light novels are much more time consuming I think he ends up doing 8 hours of translating per week on top of the 40hr+ people donate for. If that's his full time job you're looking at 25,000$ a year which isn't much for that kind of work.

TheVampirate wrote:80$ is extremely fair for that kind of thing. The people who translate manga often charge 1$ per page of translation or 3$ per page for the whole thing and light novels are much more time consuming I think he ends up doing 8 hours of translating per week on top of the 40hr+ people donate for. If that's his full time job you're looking at 25,000$ a year which isn't much for that kind of work.

Completely not true, but nice try.
His average pay for a 40 hour work week, counting the free chapters each week, assuming every chapter takes 4 hours, is 33-35k.
It doesn't take him 4 hours per chapter. So his income for the year is actually over 35k on a 40 hour per week basis.

The average pay for a PROFESSIONAL translator/interpretor is 45k a year. The low end is actually a little under 25k(extremely high end is actually 90k or so...woooo).
So $80 is not cheap, it's not extremely fair. It should actually be above average for what someone would get doing freelance translation work.


As I said before, I don't begrudge him his donations. It's his right to set a rate he wants. And that's why I never said anything about some of his "deceptions" on the matter.
However, if you're going to try and lie to me in a discussion thread, I'm going to respond.
That's half the reason I try not to read or chat on the Wuxia website.

2006 data from the American Translators Association show that the languages earning the highest average rate for per-word translation were English into Arabic and English into Danish. Both paid 19 cents per word. Languages earning the lowest per-word rate, at 12 cents per word, were English to Italian and English to Portuguese. Translators earned the highest hourly rate when working with English and Chinese. Those translating English into Chinese earned $74.92 per hour on average, while those translating Chinese into English earned an average of $65.79 per hour.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, interpreters and translators earned a mean annual wage of $50,610 in May 2011. The middle 50 percent of this group earned between $30,020 and $62,170. The highest salaries by industry were found in computer design and related services, at $104,990 a year on average; management, scientific, and technical consulting, at $97,020 on average; and the federal branch of the government, at $75,150 on average.

Granted that this is outdated info numbers can change wildly but over all I Spent about 5 mins on google to find this so I'd think that its not too far off the mark.

Pringamesh wrote:
Granted that this is outdated info numbers can change wildly but over all I Spent about 5 mins on google to find this so I'd think that its not too far off the mark.

It's way off the mark. You can find more than a couple places that say they will translate for about $.05-.08 per word. And none of them were individual freelancers. They were businesses. Individuals charge LESS than businesses, but pocket more for themselves in the end, lol.

And the rest of your information pretty much matches mine. You're about 5k up on the minimum, 5k up on the average, and 10k up on the max.
So I checked, the data I used was from 2012, one year AFTER yours. About another 3 years since then, I doubt it's gone up. You should actually expect the average to have gone down a little, and the maximum to have gone down quite a bit.

I just check the references and the rates per chapter is not in lowest end.

Although, I do appreciate the translation work done and the quality. I don't donate because I feel out of the comfort zone at the thoughts of spending money to get bonus page for a personal project. In fact, I don't donate since the word 'donations' reminds me all too well of the infamous 'Stop Tazmo' movement, in the early 2000s, that involves the free work/projects of scanlation groups being reuse without their consent for profit. (For those who want to know more : http://fanlore.org/wiki/NarutoFan.com)

---adding an edit 5 minutes later since i forgot to quote this-----

not_an_error wrote:

lozlo wrote:I only worry about it because so many people are donating, and some are donating multiple times, some even donated the price of a full chapter.
$80 is a lot of money to throw out for one chapter. So it makes me curious. But hopefully it's just paranoia talking.

Many people that have jobs and not many other expensive interests can easily indulge 80$ once in a while in something they love.
Moreover you aren't funding RWZ alone and a single donation made by many people goes a long way in bringing you enjoyment(chapters).  

I wonder if people do realize that if the books were ever translate 'officially', it will not cost more than 80$ per book.

lozlo wrote:
It's way off the mark. You can find more than a couple places that say they will translate for about $.05-.08 per word. And none of them were individual freelancers. They were businesses. Individuals charge LESS than businesses, but pocket more for themselves in the end, lol.

Interesting you say this while also saying that the price isn't fair.  Using an average of your figures, the per word cost is $0.065 a word, right?  Before I donated (first time ever), I actually looked up the word counts of the chapters he was working on in Chinese, and according to Microsoft Word, the chapters were around 3700 Chinese words/chapter.  0.065 times 3700 = $240/chapter.  So I really don't see how I got treated unfairly when I donated; Renn's price is a third the price you are claiming.

Those numbers you gather from the internet are extremely hiked up. Contract jobs in general are hiked up. But those numbers are usually paid by big businesses for contractor type jobs, and not on any employment, only because they can afford it.

But thinking about it logically. Translation is a slightly skilled job, not everyone can do, takes several years to become proficient at it. A programmer which is an equally a proficient job(programming is a type of language). Gets paid about $15 an hour. So I'd think $15 an hour is a fair price to pay. Ren seems to get a chapter done in about 3-4 hours I'll give him a benefit of the doubt and say 4 hours. So the FAIREST price should be about $60 per chapter.

Contractors don't get paid a stable wage job. So they hike up their prices for the things they do by a factor of 10 practically. i.e car mechanics, gardeners, anything home related, photographers, contract programmers.

It's weird how if you join a company you get paid a stable wage but the amount of work you do per dollar goes way up vs finding people to pay for your skills.

Wow, hey guys.  I ran into this thread as I was doing a Google search to see if there were any other TundeVictor's out there.  I thought about just walking away, but since I really do care about what you guys think about me, I thought I'd make a quick post on a few things.

1 - I really do average ~3.5 hours spent per chapter.  I've been meaning to do a 'breakdown post' one of these days.  Guess I'll do it earlier.

2 - I set it at $40/chapter back when the words were around ~1800-2000/chapter.  Starting on book 4, chapter 11, Tomatoes decided to double the words/chapter, to around 3700/chapter, which doubled my translation time as well.  If you don't believe me, take a look at this link to book 4, chapter 10 (1700 characters) and this link to book 4, chapter 11 (3700 characters).

3 - I've done the regular chapter every single week since early December, with the exception of last week, where on my off day, I edited, posted, and linked up 24 chapters of another novel I translated, 'Horizon, Bright Moon, Sabre'.  I'd be more than happy to link the regular chapters each week if you like.  I understand that given I've been doing 20+ chapters a week, it's easy for you to not notice the regular chapters.  

4 - TheLeecher issued me the challenge, not vice versa.  To make sure that I got out the five chapters, I actually ended up cutting short a night out with friends so I could get back to translate.  Since it seems that a number of people have gotten heartburn over TheLeecher deciding to let his donations not count if certain criteria are met, I'll go ahead and just cancel the challenge, even though I've 'won' it.  It's not worth the unhappiness that it seems to be causing a number of you.

5 - I'm not going to get into a huge debate about what translators usually make, although 'different' seems to be basing it on what he thinks translators 'should' make rather than what the market rate 'actually' is.  What I will say is that 5-7 cents for Chinese/English translation is bottom of the barrel (and honestly, pretty crappy quality-wise), and even then, that's triple what I'm doing for donations, at around 0.02 cents/word.  I'd also like to note that virtually all translation is contract; there are few to no 'in-house' translators, and those that exist are pretty much only in major multinational companies that need 40 hours/translation every week...and those definitely do not get paid $15 an hour.

6 - Most importantly of all, as I've always said, if any of you here have donated and feel like you have not gotten your money's worth, please feel free to email me at rwxwuxiaworld(at)gmail.com, and I will be more than happy to refund your donation.  Seriously.  

Anyhow, I take away no hard feelings from this discussion, and hope I didn't leave any behind either.  Cheers guys

leecho wrote: Interesting you say this while also saying that the price isn't fair.  Using an average of your figures, the per word cost is $0.065 a word, right?  Before I donated (first time ever), I actually looked up the word counts of the chapters he was working on in Chinese, and according to Microsoft Word, the chapters were around 3700 Chinese words/chapter.  0.065 times 3700 = $240/chapter.  So I really don't see how I got treated unfairly when I donated; Renn's price is a third the price you are claiming.

First of all, since reading comprehension isn't your strong point. I never said his price wasn't fair. I said it wasn't overly fair. In other words, his price isn't generous by any meaning of the word. He is getting paid a wage that is fair, and maybe more than fair. But as far as I'm concerned, I have no problem with it. I get to read a good series. I only commented on it here because someone commented to me using lies.

As for the CHARACTER count. First of all, his character count was never accurate. It was always off by 100+ characters. Second of all, the actual word count is much smaller than the character count. Going by the character is like charging by letter in english. The word count is anywhere from 1400-2700 or so. Average that at 2000, and you get $130. As I said, that's what a business charges. The translator doesn't get that. Freelancers generally charge LESS than a business, but they get to pocket it all, so it evens out. If we break it into terms of a full time job, he's making the same as an average professional translator.

As for you being treated unfairly, that's a matter of opinion. I never said you were treated unfairly. If you're happy with what you got, then it's fair. I'm certainly happy with what I got since I didn't donate and have read so much, lol. I don't think I could donate simply because I think he lied to me about something. I can't prove it though, and I'd rather just enjoy reading the story instead of worrying about it. It's not worth causing problems over. I just stay away from the forums and only comment on plots if I say anything in the chapter comments at all.

lozlo wrote:
First of all, since reading comprehension isn't your strong point. I never said his price wasn't fair. I said it wasn't overly fair. In other words, his price isn't generous by any meaning of the word. He is getting paid a wage that is fair, and maybe more than fair. But as far as I'm concerned, I have no problem with it. I get to read a good series. I only commented on it here because someone commented to me using lies.

As for the CHARACTER count. First of all, his character count was never accurate. It was always off by 100+ characters. Second of all, the actual word count is much smaller than the character count. Going by the character is like charging by letter in english. The word count is anywhere from 1400-2700 or so. Average that at 2000, and you get $130. As I said, that's what a business charges. The translator doesn't get that. Freelancers generally charge LESS than a business, but they get to pocket it all, so it evens out. If we break it into terms of a full time job, he's making the same as an average professional translator.

As for you being treated unfairly, that's a matter of opinion. I never said you were treated unfairly. If you're happy with what you got, then it's fair. I'm certainly happy with what I got since I didn't donate and have read so much, lol. I don't think I could donate simply because I think he lied to me about something. I can't prove it though, and I'd rather just enjoy reading the story instead of worrying about it. It's not worth causing problems over. I just stay away from the forums and only comment on plots if I say anything in the chapter comments at all.

Hi lozlo! I find that communication tends to resolve a lot more problems than silence does. Feel free to email me at the email address I provided above if you feel I have lied to you in some way

FYI - Chinese translations are generally by the character, not by the English output. You can ask around

RWX wrote:
Anyhow, I take away no hard feelings from this discussion, and hope I didn't leave any behind either.  Cheers guys

I have no hard feelings, and for me you didn't leave any behind. Though you may change your mind after reading the post I made, lol.
In the interest of verifying something since we aren't on your website, do you have the original wording for the bonus page from when it was $40 a chapter? I read it when it was $40, and I remember it roughly, but not completely.

Lol! Lolzo, you're really meticulous to get the facts right. I'm impressed.

@Ren, I don't donate either like Lolzo and i'm riding the flow of donations to read your translated chapters. I can say i'm happy with my opportunistic way. I don't have complaints.
I still have to mention a fact : when money is involved, there will always be unhappiness and some things will go awry.

Grenn wrote:Lol! Lolzo, you're really meticulous to get the facts right. I'm impressed.

Yep. It's one of my bad habits, lol. I really like to know the truth.
And I have a lot of trouble being quiet when I see things that aren't true... o_o;;
Honestly though, it's not something I want to fix. Given the choice, I'd rather suffer with the truth.
Most people prefer to have a good comforting lie. *shrug*
So I'll never win a popularity contest, lol.

lolzo, sorry, I don't have the exact wording of the previous versions saved; I have an 'autooptimize' plugin that automatically deletes old versions to keep the database small.  What I can tell you is that even after the chapters doubled in length, I still executed the remaining chapters in the queue at the original price of $40, then moved to $80.

If I might say though, some of your facts are not correct, and seem designed to support your assertions rather than reality; for example, not a single chapter was 1400 in output words after the chapters doubled in size in book 4, chapter 11.  Not a single 1400 output word chapter was the result of an $80 donation, so why would you average 1400 with 2700?  Heck, I don't even think there were any where the output was under 2000, much less 1400.

Similarly, in reality, Chinese to English translation rates actually are based per character in source, because 1) There's no reasonable way to calculate to count how many 'words' vs 'characters' there are in Chinese, and 2) Calculating by output words is inaccurate and also gives translators an incentive to 'pad' the count.  This is common knowledge for anyone who has worked as a paid Chinese/English translator or paid for translation services (I've done both, honestly).

If you truly are interested in truth, it would really behove you to make sure you are using accurate facts.  Also, a few times now, you've implied that I have been less than honest.  Again, I would really like to know what makes you say that, so I would have the chance to respond.  I take my reputation seriously, and it's very hard to respond to insinuations

RWX wrote:If you truly are interested in truth, it would really behove you to make sure you are using accurate facts.  Also, a few times now, you've implied that I have been less than honest.  Again, I would really like to know what makes you say that, so I would have the chance to respond.  I take my reputation seriously, and it's very hard to respond to insinuations

Chapter 1 Book 5. 1438 words. Feel free to check it. I rounded down to 1400 instead of rounding up to 1500. It's true that I didn't check every chapter though. Maybe that's the lowest word count in the series. Maybe there are some that are higher than 2700 words other than 1-1. And I never said you charged $80 for that chapter. I said the chapters in general were about 1400-2700 words. Naturally that's not counting 1-1 since it's so far outside the average chapter.

Since you take your reputation seriously though, pick one chapter that you posted the word count on, and then delete the periods and count the characters again. See if you notice a difference. I checked a couple of your character counts after the chapter price increased and got the same count you have listed, then I deleted the periods, commas, etc. And I noticed pretty big difference in character count.

As for my issue regarding the chapter prices. I read the bonus chapter addition when it was $40, and then again when I noticed it changed to $80 suddenly because I had been planning to donate. $40 was a ridiculously good price. I remember thinking it was very generous and it came out to around .01 cent per character. But I didn't see much difference between the $40 and $80 explanations. They bother referenced 3000-4000 word chapters. They both spoke or pro-rating for different sized chapters. And they both said it took you 3-4 hours to translate. Of course, it's possible that I just misread something, but once I noticed you were counting the periods in your character count, I decided to trust my memory.

As for my calculations, you'll notice that all my real calculations are based on an your donations, rated at 8-9 paid chapters a week versus your bonus chapter price, figured in at 40 hours a week. Which is completely fictional since you do more like 90 hours a week in translating. But the point of it was that as a full time job, at that pay rate, you make what is considered the average pay for a translator. I think the low bar was 23k (ouch). The high bar was in the 90k(woooo~) region. And the average was somewhere around 40-45k. I used the English word count because you always said "words" when you first started, and I know that every character isn't always a word. Also, the English word count was much closer to the average, whether accurate or not. But it's true that I have never done translating. And in the past the translators I worked with did it for free. So I don't have a personal knowledge I can use for reference. I can only use tidbits I found online.

I don't know what you think you read re the $40/$80, sorry .  RE periods/commas; I confess I've never gone to the trouble of deleting punctuation marks, but I'm still confused; let's say the earlier chapters had 1650 characters with 150 punctuation marks which took me 2 hours, while the later chapters had 3300 characters and 300 punctuation marks which take me 4 hours.  It doesn't change the fact that the number of characters per chapter and my translation time per chapter has pretty much doubled, does it?  Or are you suggesting that the character/punctuation ratio went up for the later chapters?  

More importantly, Book 5, Chapter 1, has a count of 2502 words, as you can see at http://www.wuxiaworld.com/cdindex-html/book-5-chapter-1/.  As I said; not a single chapter after Book 4, Chapter 11 has less than 2000 words.  Are you perhaps confusing it with Book 1, Chapter 5, one of the chapters I translated months before donations started?  Again, note how I said chapters on and after Book 4, Chapter 11 doubled in size, which is when I doubled the donation queue.  I'll repeat; there are no chapters after B4C11 that were even below 2000, much less 1400, and I've never had a single 'short' chapter at the $80 donation mark...so why would you use short chapters as part of your calculations?

I will go ahead and change the word 'words' to 'characters' to avoid any confusion on that front though.

Ah woops. I did mean book 1 chapter 5. It's pretty late here for me. You too since you're in my time zone. Anyway, this has gone way too far, lol. I have said it, and I do mean it. I don't begrudge you your donations. I completely understand wanting to get paid for your time/work. And your price is fair. It's not high, but I don't think it should be called low either considering this isn't a professional environment. It's fair.

Like Grenn pointed out, I can be meticulous.

I started reading the series right before it went up to $80. My issue was that I got excited when I read the bonus at $40 and I was sure it said 3000-4000 words, 3-4 hours. Then it seemed like the next morning I came back to read the new chapters, and it was $80 for 3000-4000 words, 3-4 hours. Maybe I read it wrong. Maybe you were in the middle of changing it because the chapters had doubled. Maybe there was a typo or something. We'll never know. I think it's time to go to bed before I fall alseep sitting up again.......