I recently received an offer from a Korean company to translate my web novel into a Korean ebook. The thing is I'm absolutely in the dark when it comes to revenue and royalties and such. Would anyone have any advice, or information sources I could turn to?

Here's the company website link:
https://www.breathe.co.kr/home

Congratulations! That‘s really cool.

I received a proposal from a Chinese web-noel platform but had to decline the offer. My reasons were the content of the contract and the huge penalties. My recommendation is as follows:

1.      Clarify whether or not they demand a strict posting schedule, especially if your work is not yet complete. Not upholding the schedule, depending on the contract, can lead to penalties.
2.      I recommend you have a contract with a limited duration and only for a single work. Like that, if you are not satisfied with the distributor you can run away after the contract ends.
3.      Clarify whether or not you have to transfer your rights over your work to them. If yes – be careful if they have a clause connecting to future works. Otherwise you and all your future works will be bound to them.
4.      Clarify whether they want the rights only fir e-publishing or for all other media.
5.      Make sure to clarify whether the contract is exclusive or non-exclusive. Non-exclusive means that you can post your works also on other platforms under certain conditions (this must also be very clearly stated since if you are unlucky you can easily have a breach of contract and penalties in the tens of thousands of dollars). Exclusive stipulates that the contracted platform is the only distributor and you have to remove the work from all other platforms, sites and distributors.
6.      As for the profits, don’t take anything that offers you less than 50% of the revenue after subtracting the publishing/site-maintenance costs. Depending on the contract, there might be also additional benefits but they differ between publishers and are bound to certain conditions. In my case, only exclusive contracts had additional benefits.
7.      Request a draft of the contract before you make any binding statements. When you receive it, go over it with at least another person that is fluent in English or the respective contract language. If you have a friend or acquaintance with legal background rope them in, unless you are prepared to pay a lawyer to read it for you. Legal English is a b*tch. If you still have doubts, I recommend really asking someone with more legal knowledge before you sign anything. In my case, I was lucky since my mum is a secretary in a law firm but legal English was still a challenge.

That is my advice. I hope that it works better for you than it worked for me. Still, even if it does not work for some reason, don’t despair. Being sought out with a proposal means that your work is worth it.

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Quote:I believe you are talking abou WN 😂. Yea, their terms for original novels are mostly ridiculous. But not the same with translated novels. The translated novels still fare better. 

Nope. NovelCat. WN tried contacting me on Wattpad but after I asked about the recent contract-drama (in the beginning of May they had problems with the authors) they never answered  .


Idk about the difference between original and translated content. As far as I understand, @Gogglesbear was offered that his original work would be translated in Korean. I was offered to post my content that was already in English. But both are still original works... Who knows. The publishing world is a jungle!

I've no clue. I mean, you generally want to say a way from web novel companies from China and Hong Kong, but Korean, I've no clue.

I mean, I've not heard of Breathe. Which could be a good thing. I don't think there is anything suspect about the Korean media scene mostly because I'm only vaguely aware of it. They have some interesting webtoons.

I mean, I would make sure it's  is a legit offer first, that the email is from them and not like someone from a Russian using a gmail account.

I mean, already just looking at their site, there isn't anything that jumps out at me as being a scam. It's a nice looking site written entirely in a language I can only know visually so I know all my favorite ramen brands are Korean. In all seriousness given that it update with a news section and not a template site with bare bones efforts to look legit, it seems fine on that end.

At this point, you would need to talk to a Korean author in the web novel scene. Basically what I'm saying it that this is out of my knowledge zone. I know more about Korean food than this side of their culture.

Gosh, I wish people would make these kinds of offers for me... Maybe my jokes are too hard to translate...

Anyway, a google search on the company returns practically no results and I can't say anything about this company's viability. They have a Youtube channel which seems to suggest the site is legitimate, but I have no clue if anyone actually reads on it.

Ariana Wrote: I asked about the recent contract-drama (in the beginning of May they had problems with the authors)

Care to elaborate? I live under a rock.

CookieCabal Wrote: Care to elaborate? I live under a rock.

Well, as far as I understood, WN owner Tencent Literature changed contract conditions without even notifying the authors. I addition to that the changes included the copyright regulations for the published works. I any case here is one of the links that shed more on the topic: https://www.abacusnews.com/china-tech-city/writers-protest-chinas-largest-publishing-company-owned-tencent/article/3083075

Just wanted to say thanks for all the responses. A lot of this stuff I hadn't even thought of before @[email protected]

I actually read some novels from that publisher :)) that's really cool, man. Have you decided what to do yet?