RoCH Chap 33 Onwards

[IcyFox]

You have any idea how much it costs to publish it offline?

Obviously not. (That's what you should be telling me. )


If I did I would probably not encourage this.


But I think this is a serious idea worth considering.

[Candide]

It is, indeed, but you need to check these:

- You need to pay JY for the right to publish it
- You need to pay the publisher
- You need to pay the distributors
- You need a lot of efforts to promote and sell it (not just to buyers, but to the disties)
- You need to foot the bill if it flops (with the book being available online and readers are often young, technical minded and broke, offline can easily flop)

You need minimum a few grands just to publish a limited quantity.

Who's gonna pay for it?

Then by the time you make some profits... Who's gonna do the book keeping? Who's gonna make sure everyone gets a fair share? Who's gonna organise payments?

My mum's friend is both a publisher and a disty. I can ask him for exact details of costs and stuff, but what matters most is: do you know who will buy this book, how many will buy it and how much can you charge per copy?

Publishing a real book is a lot of work and a lot of money too.

Publishing an ebook on the other hand...

[JamesG]

If I were going to introduce the North American reader to JY's books I would start with TLBB. The English name Demi-Gods & Semi-Devils would be an eye-catching name in a book store. If it took off the others would do great.

[atlantean0208]

you guys should ask Becky on her experience publishing GL XSYL

[HuangYushi]

- You need to pay the publisher

You need minimum a few grands just to publish a limited quantity.

Sometimes, the publisher is not the printer (the people who actually put the thing into the printing press). So the publisher takes a cut, the layout/design/artwork people take a cut, and the printer takes a cut. And printers won't do a print run without a minimum number, which usually tends to be 1,000 copies.

Let's do some math.

So, you'd have 1,000 copies of 1,000 pages (not counting the cover and miscellanea). If each page is, say, an arbitrary SGD0.03 (for the benefit of IcyFox), 1,000 pages would be SGD30.00.

The layout/design/artwork cost for the cover/miscellanea tends to hover around 30% (about 8 years ago in S'pore) of the printing cost, so you'd have to add SGD9.00.

Then, there's the publisher's cut, which could be 15% of the printing + design cost (or more): SGD5.85.

Add the distributors' cost, perhaps another 15%: SGD6.73.

And add JY's royalty. Let's say he's nice, at 10% of cost, not selling price: SGD5.16.

That comes up to about SGD56.74 per copy.

With a minimum print-run is 1,000 copies, so you're looking at an "investment" of SGD56,740.00 (which will actually enable you to pay anything from 20% to 50% of a 4-room HDB flat, depending on location) ... not counting marketing and other promotional costs that will be needed to ensure that the books are not gathering dust on the shelves of some distributor in the middle of nowhere.

That's the cost.

What will the selling price be?

===

In conclusion: It will be way much cheaper to buy a couple of ink cartridges for your printer, download the translation and print the whole thing out using draft mode (especially if the print comes out clear; don't need to waste the ink). Then, just go to your nearby book-binder and get it bound. You can even choose a leather hardbound cover with gold block lettering if you want!

[Han Solo]

The person that you guys should be asking is FlyingFox. He works as a publisher for Penguin.

[IcyFox]

NOTICE


OK, I've decided to change this thread into a discussion of whether we should publish RoCH in book-form or not.


Gentlemen of the Jury, you have heard the evidence (from Candide and Huang Yu Shi). Do you concur?


Please cast your votes (hopefully with an explanation), readers. Thanks.



P.S. ~ If you guys need more information I'm sure many people will be willing to help.

[Candide]

With a minimum print-run is 1,000 copies

It can be 200 here, and other stuff could be cheaper (mate's rates). As mentioned above, my mum's friend is a publisher and printer and he just did a deal like that for his brother-in-law.

It is also a lot harder considering that we have so many translators for this book and negotiating and managing a fair share for all is gonna be the biggest pain in the arse.

Save your energy for LOCH and other novels.

[gobie2920]

I believed that there are two issues at hand here. Firstly is whether to make this fan translation, an approved translation of the novel. Meaning that, getting the author, Jin Yong, to approve the work officially. Secondly, is the method of publishing this translation - as an ebook or hard copy for commerical circulation (which need the first issue solved first) or that it remains as an underground translation that can be circulated via this forum.
I have to say that I agree with Candide assessment of the complexities and difficulties publishing this translation commercially, especially with the various translators that been involved. It is good to has it in hard copy but I believed that it will be better to has it online, as an ebook (eg PDF) etc as the forum members seems to be from various countries and we of course want to distribute this to as many people as possible. Regarding the issue of getting JY approval of the translation, I am not very sure of how commercial minded he is - some authors are very happy to have their work translated while some don't and would argue fiercely about everything. We could of course write and ask him nicely about this OR we can let it be as it is and spare the energy for another translation. Being selfish as I am, I would of course would prefer the later.

[IcyFox]

It is also a lot harder considering that we have so many translators for this book and negotiating and managing a fair share for all is gonna be the biggest pain in the arse.

I would happy with a copy of the book, and I think the other translators would, too.


Since the translator who did the most work is NOODLES, then he deserves better - A copy with Jin Yong's autograph. (Or Candide's, if JY is too busy. )

[eliza bennet]

After finishing this wonderful novel, I'd like to thank all the translators for their effort and dedication. Please accept my sincere thanks.


Maybe JY can be convinced to publish an English version of the book. I think it is beneficial to know the publishing story of Duke of Mount Deer.

Since so much effort and quality work have been spent on this novel, I think everyone deserves legal recognition and financial benefit but we need to get the author's consent for that.

I'd buy the English translation of ROCH - no matter how many books it is.

[fox-s]

I am aware of what Candide said when I first threw this idea to this forum. I am not familiar with publishing business (never been in one). I prefer to have a hard copy of any book for a simple reason: so that I am not stuck in front of the monitor just to read it. Like IcyFox was saying, I am not looking for financial reward, I would be happy just to get a copy of the book free.

Anyway, here's my thought:

Let Candide find out from the acquiantance of her on the publishing side of it. In the meantime, we can devote our time to translating the whole trilogy. Then, somebody (I presumed it would be wuxiapedia, since they have the most extensive collection that I know of) contact Jin Yong and ask what he thinks. We still need his approval to make this translation official. If he agrees, then wuxiapedia will throw this idea again online, just do some marketing research, so to speak. And then we'll go from there.

If would be great we can find some companies who specialize in publishing translated materials from Chinese into English, because they already have the network. One example I found by accident was "redwingbooks" (www.redwingbooks.com), but their catalog only listed medical/health related books. Maybe there are other companies out there who would be interested in publishing novels, more specifically, wuxia. This is a unique genre.

I agree with Huang Yushi that the selling price could be an obstacle, since the readers would be mostly younger generation (high school to college). But optimistically speaking, if they can afford Tolkien and Rowling's books, then they can afford Jin Yong's books. I am not talking about manga yet ...

My point is: it's true that e-book has some advantages, but let's not assume everybody prefer online version over the traditional paper and ink version. If we get Jin Yong's approval and make this official, we can even copyright it. I know, I know ... then we'll have to keep track who did what and so on and so forth ... but we haven't even done the next step yet ...

You know what, I just remembered something:
The online version of this novel is widely available. I notice from this forum alone that there are at least 3 online versions. Yet the hardcopy edition is still available at the bookstore (e.g. Yesasia). Anybody knows how to contact the publisher? They might be interested in trying.

Another thought, I also noticed that the readers in this forum are not necessarily from english speaking countries. Those of you whom I am talking about, would you give us your opinion on this? Do you think english version of this novel in your country is a bad idea? Yes or no? The reason(s)?

Just my 2 cents,

[Bangs]

Wow! If ROCH ever get published I will certainly buy a copy.

Howre you guys doing? Very little activity lately huh....

[atlantean0208]

This is the link to Xiao Shiyi Lang book one from Homa books:

http://www.homabooks.com/general/boo...china/1020.php

Rebecca S. Tai or Becky first translate the novel here at SPCNET, I still have her incomplete manuscript. So if you guys want to know an exact experience of SPCNET translator producing english wuxia book, maybe you guys should contact this Homa books.

This is what they say about them (HomaBooks):

Under our English publishing program, we not only publish books translated from Asian languages, especially from Chinese and Korean, but also books written originally in English. We pride ourselves on this publishing endeavor aiming to help Western readers better understand and appreciate the East Asian cultures that are often too far away and somewhat mystified.

[HuangYushi]

Let's *seriously* consider the *other option*: Is there really anything terrribly *bad* about buying a couple of ink cartridges, printing the novel out and binding it to your liking? You'd get a personal copy faster (and cheaper and a lot less painful) than waiting for someone to publish it and sell it in a bookstore.

Alternatively, you could just download the whole thing on to a CD, take it to the nearest digital printing centre and let the people there run you a personal copy, complete with binding. I do this a lot with articles from professional journals. I don't need the whole journal, so I download the articles I need, compile them into a volume on a CD and get the digital printing people to print/bind me a personal set. All done within 3 days!

Isn't that great? Unless there is something going on here that I'm reluctant to even think about....

[IcyFox]

Isn't that great? Unless there is something going on here that I'm reluctant to even think about....

Hmmm, let me see, what could that possibly be?


Any further opinions or facts regarding the publishing of RoCH? Come on guys, cast your votes!

[Tazzy1972]

I rather read from screen i am a cheapskate

[fox-s]

Huang Yushi, I am doing the same thing for articles and papers that I don't want to keep forever. You are correct, it is much cheaper doing it that way. And no, I don't have any other agenda .. Honest! But I am kind of a book collector. I like books, and as much as I can afford it, I like buying books. It runs on my family. Have I ever told you that two of my brothers and I bought three sets of the condor trilogy, so each one of us have our own personal copy? You might think we are pretty sick .. but the fact is, we are book lovers. I still keep the books my grandmother left us, books dated back from mid 1960s to around mid 1970s. And everytime I went to Singapore my favorite stop is the bookstores over there, to buy some english novels which were not available back where I came from.

Anyway, I think I am not alone. There are book lovers out there; who might be interested in owning a good quality book, even though the cheaper version is available. (As much as I can afford it, I always buy the hardbound edition over the cheaper paperback edition) What I am saying is: it's not always about money.

[Candide]

I understand what you mean. My dad is kind of like that. He bought lots and lots of books and keeps them like treasures, no matter what, even though he doesn't reread them very often.

When I become a millionaire, I'll sponsor this publishing project.

[IcyFox]

When I become a millionaire, I'll sponsor this publishing project.

Let me wish you luck in striking the lottery, then.


Actually if JY autographs my copy I wouldn't even mind buying it.