Digital Release Method Prefrence
How would you prefer Books be released digitally?
0
As we all know, Fakku tried a different track in December - January by attempting to work on three Tanks at once, releasing a chapter a day throughout the month of December, with the actual direct downloads coming only after all three had been released to the online reader within the first half of January.
I'm curious to see what the customers preference is. Would you rather get content earlier than normal, but only in single chapters every few days and only through the on site reader or would you prefer to wait a little longer to have the full Tank all at once via both direct download and the online reader at the same time.
In many ways it wasn't so much the method that caused delays, but the amount of work involved. Were it only one Tank at a time the first method would have gone much smoother. There were nearly 700 pages worth of content to clean, translate, edit, quality check, and encode amongst other things across all three Tanks. An insane amount of work.
Fakku has proven to be able to release quality products, the only issue is the lack of consistency when it comes to releasing on time. I could see option two working by focusing on just one project at a time as it would give them a much better idea of how long a chapter is going to take to fully complete. Time wouldn't get away from them trying to juggle multiple projects at once and they wouldn't have to keep placating customers in the forums and comments sections when they can't make good on their chapter release dates.
I'm curious to see what the customers preference is. Would you rather get content earlier than normal, but only in single chapters every few days and only through the on site reader or would you prefer to wait a little longer to have the full Tank all at once via both direct download and the online reader at the same time.
In many ways it wasn't so much the method that caused delays, but the amount of work involved. Were it only one Tank at a time the first method would have gone much smoother. There were nearly 700 pages worth of content to clean, translate, edit, quality check, and encode amongst other things across all three Tanks. An insane amount of work.
Fakku has proven to be able to release quality products, the only issue is the lack of consistency when it comes to releasing on time. I could see option two working by focusing on just one project at a time as it would give them a much better idea of how long a chapter is going to take to fully complete. Time wouldn't get away from them trying to juggle multiple projects at once and they wouldn't have to keep placating customers in the forums and comments sections when they can't make good on their chapter release dates.
0
animefreak_usa
Child of Samael
Either. I'll wait until the book is release fully, but if i want to read it i'll use the reader online. i care less if it full or just chapters.
5
YQII
FAKKU Translator
The poll is about putting up early chapters or not, but the majority of your post is about how it's a bad idea to work on several projects at once. There's already been a lot of discussion about the former, so I'm only gonna address the latter in this reply.
First off all, you base most of your arguments on speculations, and you're wrong in assuming that we don't focus on one book at the time. I finish translating one book before moving on to the next, and these are done ahead of time so that the typesetters won't have to wait for scripts. We currently have two typesetters, each working on a single book at the time. Once the initial typesetting is done, there's a period where they might start on the next book while waiting for feedback from editors, but that's again to assure that they always have something to do.
Gunma was finished first, but because of the sheer amount of text in that one, proofreading took a lot longer than it typically does for a regular book. We were also short-handed because of sickness, which delayed the QA process further. With nothing to do on Gunma, the typesetter started on the next book in the meantime. We decided to do release all three books at the same time since it was Christmas. This was a special occasion, and you'll probably see books popping up one at a time in the future, with the potential for some overlapping later on—for instance the chapters of one book being released across February, and a second one mid-February to mid-March.
Finally I'd like to point out that the chapters were released on schedule. Some were a few hours late, but that's because they didn't go live automatically—a feature we intend to implement for future releases. The only real delay as I see it was the download links being 1-2 weeks late, and that was mostly due to poor prioritizing, and not an overwhelming amount of work. We all agree this was a failure, and going forward, I'd like to see the downloads going up sometime between the next "release slot" (the date the next chapter would've gone up if there was one), and no later than one week after the final chapter.
First off all, you base most of your arguments on speculations, and you're wrong in assuming that we don't focus on one book at the time. I finish translating one book before moving on to the next, and these are done ahead of time so that the typesetters won't have to wait for scripts. We currently have two typesetters, each working on a single book at the time. Once the initial typesetting is done, there's a period where they might start on the next book while waiting for feedback from editors, but that's again to assure that they always have something to do.
Gunma was finished first, but because of the sheer amount of text in that one, proofreading took a lot longer than it typically does for a regular book. We were also short-handed because of sickness, which delayed the QA process further. With nothing to do on Gunma, the typesetter started on the next book in the meantime. We decided to do release all three books at the same time since it was Christmas. This was a special occasion, and you'll probably see books popping up one at a time in the future, with the potential for some overlapping later on—for instance the chapters of one book being released across February, and a second one mid-February to mid-March.
Finally I'd like to point out that the chapters were released on schedule. Some were a few hours late, but that's because they didn't go live automatically—a feature we intend to implement for future releases. The only real delay as I see it was the download links being 1-2 weeks late, and that was mostly due to poor prioritizing, and not an overwhelming amount of work. We all agree this was a failure, and going forward, I'd like to see the downloads going up sometime between the next "release slot" (the date the next chapter would've gone up if there was one), and no later than one week after the final chapter.
0
either way is ok, all I want is resumable of direct download, cus until now I never get it done, always disconnected at 1MB or so....
wasted 2 titles ... jeezzzzzzzzzzz
wasted 2 titles ... jeezzzzzzzzzzz
1
I voted chapter by chapter release. Why? Because I've worked in fansubbing and scanlating before. It's infinitely easier to QA a single chapter/episode than an entire tankobon/movie, even if the time you have to do the latter is the same as the former in a staggered time frame.
This isn't just for the team themselves, who would be able to do a quick look through before uploading. This is also for readers, who can then report any errors they spot. Unless you write down the errors as you find them, it's possible to forget/lose track of them by the time you're done reading.
And this better and quicker QA allows the final download to be better, which saves bandwidth and time, as well as allowing the final product to be potentially better than it otherwise would.
This isn't just for the team themselves, who would be able to do a quick look through before uploading. This is also for readers, who can then report any errors they spot. Unless you write down the errors as you find them, it's possible to forget/lose track of them by the time you're done reading.
And this better and quicker QA allows the final download to be better, which saves bandwidth and time, as well as allowing the final product to be potentially better than it otherwise would.