Why are so many I Eat Tomatoes novels being translated?

[zalan888]

I appreciate all the work of the translators out there and am actively reading Coiling Dragon, Douluo Dalu, Stellar Transformation, and Swallowed Star. I just find it odd that I Eat Tomatoes has the most active novels in translation when he's not considered the most popular web novelist of the wuxia/fantasy genre in China.

I was familiar with classical wuxia, but didn't know how much online literature had exploded in China until I started reading some of the translations I've mentioned above. I started looking into how big the online literature scene had become in China and who the major authors are.

Here's a link to one of the article I stumbled across, top authors

This is the popularity as I understand it and the translations of their work in progress:

1)Tang family's third young master - Doulou Dalu
2)Great silkworm potato - Dou Po Can Qiong(just started)
3)Bloody Red - None that I know of
4)I Eat Tomatoes - Stellar Transformation, Coiling Dragon, Swallowed Star

I'm just curious why the 4th most popular author has the most active translations. This stands in stark contrast to the classical wuxia translation projects which started off focusing on Jin Yong and Gu Long.

[Ren Wo Xing]

I appreciate all the work of the translators out there and am actively reading Coiling Dragon, Douluo Dalu, Stellar Transformation, and Swallowed Star. I just find it odd that I Eat Tomatoes has the most active novels in translation when he's not considered the most popular web novelist of the wuxia/fantasy genre in China.

I was familiar with classical wuxia, but didn't know how much online literature had exploded in China until I started reading some of the translations I've mentioned above. I started looking into how big the online literature scene had become in China and who the major authors are.

Here's a link to one of the article I stumbled across, top authors

This is the popularity as I understand it and the translations of their work in progress:

1)Tang family's third young master - Doulou Dalu
2)Great silkworm potato - Dou Po Can Qiong(just started)
3)Bloody Red - None that I know of
4)I Eat Tomatoes - Stellar Transformation, Coiling Dragon, Swallowed Star

I'm just curious why the 4th most popular author has the most active translations. This stands in stark contrast to the classical wuxia translation projects which started off focusing on Jin Yong and Gu Long.

Simply put, the one who started this recent translation wave, he-man, was a fan of Stellar Transformations, so Tomatoes has a higher 'profile' in this community than some of the other authors

[wkeej]

I think I have asked this question out of curiosity before. Is "I Eat Tomatoes" a nickname? Any good reason for this nickname?

[oniontsukii]

@Ren would you be interested in taking another project? I love your translation, just can't get enough.

[Ren Wo Xing]

@Ren would you be interested in taking another project? I love your translation, just can't get enough.

LOL good god man, thank you but I have like 550 more chapters to go on this one xD

Just out of curiosity, what project would you like to see?

[oniontsukii]

Great silk worm patato sounds interesting... i like quirky titles...anyways you are doing an awesome job translating CD

[Ren Arcadia]

LOL good god man, thank you but I have like 550 more chapters to go on this one xD

Just out of curiosity, what project would you like to see?

I also want for you to continue with a new project once u finish coiling xD... this is the series I wanted to see gets translated Ao Shi Jiu Chong Tian but I also want to see stellar get finish... gahhh this is hard

[dexter64]

I appreciate all the work of the translators out there and am actively reading Coiling Dragon, Douluo Dalu, Stellar Transformation, and Swallowed Star. I just find it odd that I Eat Tomatoes has the most active novels in translation when he's not considered the most popular web novelist of the wuxia/fantasy genre in China.

I was familiar with classical wuxia, but didn't know how much online literature had exploded in China until I started reading some of the translations I've mentioned above. I started looking into how big the online literature scene had become in China and who the major authors are.

Here's a link to one of the article I stumbled across, top authors

This is the popularity as I understand it and the translations of their work in progress:

1)Tang family's third young master - Doulou Dalu
2)Great silkworm potato - Dou Po Can Qiong(just started)
3)Bloody Red - None that I know of
4)I Eat Tomatoes - Stellar Transformation, Coiling Dragon, Swallowed Star

I'm just curious why the 4th most popular author has the most active translations. This stands in stark contrast to the classical wuxia translation projects which started off focusing on Jin Yong and Gu Long.

I've not checked your link, but AFAIK, web novels in China are pretty much everywhere. Authors are paid based on the word count and the popularity of their work (I think based on followers and votes). I don't know which website that 1st doing web novels, but because of their popularity, there are a lot of web sites that post the novels from the original website, and they also implement their own ranking. So the ranking will be dependent on which website and at what time. If I'm not mistaken, Dou Po Cang Qiong was finished in 2008, so I think you have outdated data.

Apart from popularity ranking, there is internet writer top earner ranking (including games and movies royalties) which is released every year and yes, in this ranking IET always be beaten by #1 and #2 in your ranking. IET top spot in this ranking was #3. So your list might be the 2012 edition of internet writer top earner.

In this case I think more popularity won't always translate to making more money, it is possible that the most popular may be harder to be adapted to games or movies, so for the most demanding authors that won't settle for poor adaptation, the money they earn would be less because of being picky. I think IET can be labeled as picky.