Okay, as you've probably noticed by this point, a Donations button is now available on the right side of your screen. I was initially against gaining money in any form for our group, considering what we do is walking the line between legal and illegal, but as a lot of us, myself included, are having to get jobs in order to support ourselves and will be independent in a few years, I've found it somewhat logical to try and save up some money through what we love to do in addition to what we don't as much.
Now, I know a lot of people are going to be against this. Scanlation is a touchy subject, and there are many groups that simply refuse to take money for their work. But as I get older, I realize more and more that money is not easy to come by. As much as I'd love to just do nothing but work on Fukumoto manga my entire life, the fact of the matter is that either I'll have to earn some money by doing this or give it up at some point when real life takes over. And in this competitive market I'll be entering into in a few years, I'll need all the financial backing I can get.
Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Of course, helping us directly is one benefit of donating to us, but if you do choose to donate, 20% of the proceeds will go to helping buy FKMT manga, improve this website, ensure that our mediafire won't run out of space, and so on and so forth. And not only that, but by donating, you will be motivating us to do more work than we already do, as each member's cut of the remaining 80% is directly proportional to how much work they put in over each month. I won't hide anything from you whatsoever, so here is the exact formula we will be using to determine each member's share:
- C = Number of chapters a certain member has played a part in releasing.
- R(#)M = The number of members that worked on release "#" that want money.
- The "...RnM" means to continue the preceding pattern until all releases that month have been accounted for.
- *0.8 = A multiplier to ensure that 20% of the donations go to the side fund for raws and site improving.
- Cut = Member's cut of that month's donations
- Also, only 5 out of the 7 members will be getting any money from this; js06 and skutieos opted out.
If it puts you off that most of your money will be going to us, then feel free not to donate. But the way I see it, Scanlating is a kind of art form, and one that takes a considerable amount of effort to perform, so it's reasonable to try and monetize it. And really, most of that 20% will be used to buy RAWs, so a lot of your money will be going to Fukumoto-Sensei, as well. Just look at all those unshaded manga on the Fukumoto Hitlist, and all the future volumes of Akagi and Kaiji!
So yeah, I'm sure this will spark some controversy, but for TLDR, we're in a spot where we need money, we do high quality work for you to read free, and a good portion of what you give us will be given to Fukumoto-Sensei as well. With all that in mind, I think it's reasonable to request this of you. But what do I know. Tell me what you think in the poll on the side, I'd like to hear it.
Nothing wrong with it, don't worry.
ReplyDeleteI'm donating right now, you guys do a great job.
ReplyDeleteI'm fine with it, I guess.
ReplyDeleteYou should put up some ads, its gonna help.
now that i think about it, i was really lucky that the girl that give me those 5 days of manga cleaning lessons did it for free, this capitalist work man so tough.
"I'm fine with it I guess" but ads would be a better idea. But to be honest, in my eyes the most important person in the scanlation team is a translator. Kazuya raws can be easily obtained for free and having a translation makes it unnecessary to have English scanlation. I know it's less convenient to read (although with wide and big computer monitor + a good manga reader like Manga Meeya, Pic Walker or Honey View it's not that annoying) but it would do the job.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I do understand perfectly that if someone decides to do a proper scanlation it requires a lot of work. A scan must be resized, white balanced (levelled), cropped, touched up (e.g. often frames are curved and lines have to be straightened), Japanese text erased, often re-drawn, full page spreads have to be merged. Plus text has to be translated, proof read, type set, font selected, and quality controlled.
All in all I'm certainly not offended by it and I understand your decision. I would probably object and go elsewhere if you were doing some very popular manga (Naruto, Bleach or some other One Piece of shit) but in your case I'm fine with it.
I'm glad you understand the entire process. Many people think "scanlating" equates to slapping some text on a raw manga page via paint. It really does take a lot of time, but donating, as Sonickrazy mentioned, is absolutely voluntary. We can function perfectly fine without donations, but incentives probably don't hurt.
DeleteIronically, I read all of the "Big Three" manga you mentioned, though I only like One Piece. Then again, I read literally hundreds of manga. See: http://www.mangaupdates.com/mylist.html?id=284841&list=read
This is definitely fine imo. Biggest thing that can go wrong is conflicts within the group and stuff(just because money always complicates stuff) but you'll probably manage that just fine.
ReplyDeleteThis is particularly good translation work too(no clue about accuracy itself obv, like most I know no japanese, but typesetting, images and the english is great), I've read a few mangas where the translation actually made it impossible to get interested and it makes me appreciate proper ones like this one so much more.
After all you've done so far without ever asking anything in return, you don't have to worry about anything. I'm a self-sufficient student myself, so I know how the real world works. I guess that's part of why I like Fukumoto's work so much.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I have some spare money, I'll make sure to donate.
I would seriously donate, if I wasn't this poor right now.
ReplyDeleteGood luck guys.
If I was going to donate to a scan group, it would probably be you guys. I appreciate the lack of bullshit on where the money goes, also. As long as you guys aren't begging in your release posts, as I really enjoy reading those after I finish a chapter.
ReplyDeleteYour formula... it won't do what you say it intends to do.
ReplyDeleteSee, if you want to ensure that 20% of it goes to RAWs and such, or, as you put it, 80% of it goes to the members, you must multiply the "Cut" equation by 0.8, or 4/5; but when you multiply the denominator by 1.2, or 6/5, it means you're multiplying the whole fraction by the inverse of it, 5/6.
That way, it means roughly 83.3% of it is going for the "Cut", and the 16.7% left is going for RAWs and such.
I felt like I should point that out.
Anyway, keep going with the awesome scanlation, guys!
This. You want that number to be 1.25 for a 20%/80% cut.
DeleteFix'd
DeleteSo would that also mean you are actually hunting down these "rare unscanlated" manga from the Fukumoto hitlists? I have done a little research, there is a lot you can easily buy from auctions. Not too expensive either, just get a proxy to buy it for you and send it someplace you can scan them (scanlating is a bitch though). Or are you buying RAWS from somewhere?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've been ordering a few on yesasia and sites like that, but for some reason they always seem to be out of stock of the early ones. HappyScans's Wright bought Burai na Kaze Tetsu for me, and I'm scanning that right now. So yeah, we won't need a ton of money to buy them, so 20% should be more than enough.
DeleteYeah, I've also unsuccessfully tried to order a few early FkMT works on Yes-Asia in the past. I don't think they will ever be in stock. You could buy them used on yahoo.jp or so.
DeleteI am planning on bringing a whole bunch of rare FKMT manga back home if I'm staying in Japan for a while.
Shouldn't be too hard to get your hands on them while you're there.
Shut up and take my perica!
ReplyDeleteSeriously I didn't even have to think about it, you guys are great.
Hi, you guys didn't say how much you wanted from everybody so I just gave what I had. I hope it is enough
ReplyDelete~Kyle Pecorelli
Can there be rewards? Like the member who donates the most gets to be an honorary member. I don't know Japanese but I love you guys and really want to be part of the group. I can translate from Engrish or just use the erase tool in photo shop to make the words look nicer. Or like just tell me how much I need to donate and I'll be happy being an Honorary Member with no real responsibilities.
DeleteAlso how do I play Mahjong with you guys? I am quite good but I don't see a link on your site that takes me to a run private server.
Also do you read all the comments made by your fans? I posted the first four chapters to FKMT's Washizu? I don't care if you don't have time to read all the comments I am just curious.
Thanks very much for the donation! And I don't know if we'll be doing honorary members or anything like that, though I do have some ideas for rewards in the future. I didn't see it before, but I looked at your washizu scans and they do indeed look quite nice, though all I can say right now is that I'll keep you in mind should we need another editor for whatever reason.
DeleteWe play mahjong on Tenhou, but I do require that you come on our IRC on Saturdays at 22:00 GMT or 2:00 PST so we can know how many games we have and who's playing and stuff like that. So come on tomorrow and we can play!
And I don't usually read all of the comments, I have a lot of other things in my life and there's gotten to be so many that I can't keep up. Peng reads every single one, multiple times, though.
When you are up to date with Akagi and Kazuya is dead or penniless you guy are going to go back and do Akagi Volume 9 & 10 and Tobaku Mokushiroku Kaiji Volumes 3-13 right?
DeleteDefinitely, yes.
DeleteOh man, I was waiting for you guys to come up with a donation button.
ReplyDeleteMeasured by all the work you have done in the past 2 years and how it never failed to enrich my day, I should probably donate a grand or something.
I'll definitely donate to you guys and it's absolutely right to give others the voluntary option to reward you for your hard work ^_^
There's no problem at all :) you guys have scanned and translated really a lot. No one's gonna be mad at you for suggesting donations.
ReplyDeleteI'm donating for every Akagi release. It's a performance-based salary.
ReplyDeletehttp://i.animecrazy.net/toua_tokuchi.jpg
How much would I have to donate for you guys to start hosting a Forum section? Divided into two parts. Spoilers and Non-Spoilers. Non-Spoilers for general talks of FKMT, Mahjong, and extreme gambling. & Spoilers for How is Kaiji gonna end theories, and In depth discussions about the final chapters of Ten.
ReplyDeleteCause I would really like to have conversations with everyone here that weren't chats. Forums. Name your price