Two Ning Yuan Novels Licensed for Publication in English

[douqi]

Today at around 1145 GMT, baihe author Ning Yuan posted on Weibo that two of her novels, historical court intrigue epic At Her Mercy (我为鱼肉, pinyin: wo wei yurou) and sci-fi thriller The Creator's Grace (造物的恩宠, pinyin: zaowu de enchong) had been licensed for publication in English. I saw this about 17 minutes after it was posted (I took note of the posting time), so naturally I proceeded to toss the news post-haste into the roiling mass of Twitter fandom. Ning Yuan's post did not specify the publisher, but speculation was rife.

At about 1600 GMT, Singapore-based publisher Rosmei (who have licensed a number of danmei novels for publication in English), posted a hasty tweet essentially confirming that they were the publisher in question. The tweet is so hasty that they didn't even remember to state in it that the two licensed novels are baihe titles. No further information (identity of the translator(s), whether a digital edition will be available) has been provided by Rosmei at the time of writing.

My thoughts on this generally

I am delighted that Ning Yuan's novels will be available to a wider audience. She is one of the genre's most popular and longest-established authors, and it's practically criminal that international fandom hasn't, to date, heard much about her. The Creator's Grace is one of the best baihe novels I've read so far. In fact, I was planning to translate it myself after I finished working on Purely by Accident, so I'm both rather relieved that I won't have to be the one to tackle a 520K-word behemoth while also feeling faintly downcast about putting it aside. At Her Mercy is also one of the most popular court intrigue novels of the present generation, so I'm pleased that more people will be able to read it.

However, I have serious reservations about Rosmei as a publisher. Not only is their reach very limited — to date, most of their licences are confined to print books (they have managed to get ebook rights only for a few titles), and to Singapore (plus possibly Malaysia) only — but so far, they have not released or shipped any actual product yet. They also appear to pay translators an appallingly low rate, which is a poor guarantee of good work. The bits and pieces of their translation previews (for other novels) I have read do not, so far, inspire great confidence. The fact that this baihe licensing announcement is something they were clearly building up to (based on this tweet, it seems they were originally planning to announce it on 20 February), only to be pre-empted by the author herself, strongly indicates that they did not ask the author to sign an NDA or even strongly emphasise to her that the news should be kept under wraps — which one would imagine to be extremely standard business practice. I also have doubts about the choice of At Her Mercy as a first baihe licence. While the novel is extremely well-known among baihe readers in mainland China, it is also nearly 1.25 million words long in Chinese, and so makes for a very resource-intensive project, particularly for an untested publisher in an untested market.

My other vague thoughts on baihe publishing in English that no one asked for

For me, honestly, the ideal scenario would be to have a baihe English translation published either by a Big Five publisher, via a solid SFF imprint if it's genre fiction, and/or one of the highly-regarded small presses that specialises in works in translation, such as Tilted Axis. I would like to see the process of translation and editing being approached in a genuinely careful and thoughtful way, with an eye to popularising and marketing the work to a much wider audience than — as is the case at present — existing webnovel aficionados. One of my extremely long-term goals is to possibly work towards that, with support from like-minded people.

In the meantime, if anyone has a spare hundred thousand pounds or so for starting a small press focused on good translations of good/key baihe novels, let me know and we can work something out :)

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

Yeah. Like, I'm really excited to buy official baihe translations (especially in print) but I have reservations re: the publisher.

At least it looks like folks in the US can order their stuff via Yiggybean Books, so hopefully actually getting the books won't be too complicated for me once they're available for preorder.

[douqi]

Honestly, these publishers need to up their game. Somebody needs to pitch something to Tilted Axis, stat.

For those who don't have easy access to Rosmei's books, I guess if there's interest, I could maybe try putting together a small group order within the comm. I have a couple of friends in Singapore who could help with that end of things.

[aurumcalendula]

I hadn't heard of Tilted Axis before (tbh that's probably because I'm more familiar with US publishers). I'll have to check their stuff out!

On a vaguely related note, I keep hoping someone picks the Couple of Mirrors manhua - I love the art and like having print copies of graphic novels.

[halfcactus]

Yeah I'm pretty frustrated with the state of licensed cnovel translation right now because I feel that they're after quick releases (and cheap fan labor) rather than quality work. ;___; From what I've heard about other publishers, there's barely an editing / feedback process past the draft too.

Anyway I'm almost purely digital so this is definitely not going to be on my to-read pile. ^^; I hope that the big publishers at least see the demand of translated work to eventually take on a project or two. I really want a translation that reflects the writing quality of the original text.

[douqi]

Yeah, my concern is that the current wave of licensing is somewhat going to poison the well for years to come. If the majority of fans aren't demanding any better, and aren't even aware that 'better' is a thing that exists, there's simply no incentive for current publishers to improve, or for a new market entrant to take a punt on delivering a better product.

Anyway, current bonkers plan: (1) translate Ning Yuan's upcoming cyberpunk historical (fingers crossed I like it enough) (2) pitch the translation to a suitable publishing house (I don't want to say Tor, but) (3) ??? (4) profit??? (at least for the publisher, and hopefully the genre/field in the long term).

[halfcactus]

The reader attitude of prioritizing speed over quality has unfortunately been carried over, and it doesn't help that some translators shut down criticism on the licensed translations because 1) the translators are their friends or 2) they want to do work for the publisher. ^^; Fandom can take a project really far, and I'm very grateful that there's been a wave of licensing, but sometimes I feel that the target audience should be, idk, a more general readership and not the fandom that's way too used to being grateful for crumbs. But it also just really sucks that the publishers capitalizing on fandom don't pay enough to attract more serious professionals. :(

Cheering on you on your bonkers plan!!!!!! I deeply hope that you like that novel enough! And I hope you have other people in the translation + publishing circle to help you out. ♥

[yuerstruly]

Thankful for the licenses, especially since they're Ning Yuan, and At Her Mercy (At the World's Mercy, lol) is definitely the most recommended court intrigue work in CN circles. The Creator's Grace is also a great Ning Yuan choice, though I am not sure if it was the choice I would make as a publisher, especially as one of the first companies to license for English translations of baihe novels—it will be misleading for the incoming audience.

Though I have reservations about Rosmei, I am excited nonetheless. They sure know their audience! I just wish they'd pay their translators more and find better editors (or have more rounds of editing?) to deliver better quality work.

If the previews come out and they are tolerable by my standards, I would be willing to host a USA giveaway for one or two copies!

[douqi]

Thanks for the generous offer of the giveaway! Let's see if/when the books actually get produced, haha.

[kwirkee76]

You mentioned a hundred thousand pounds to start a small press. What does it entail?

I'm hoping BTC continues its trajectory and perhaps, in the next 6-10 years, we can discuss. ;-)

[douqi]

Haha, let's hope your BTC ship comes in soon.