Contractors
This is currently the role we need the most in future. We need people of business or native level Japanese to contract Japanese artists, informing them of our rates and asking if they would like to work with us to create official English versions of our products. I intend to fulfill this role myself at first while we’re looking for more people to help with this, just as I did when I initially reached out to Wataya to translate his series. Due to personal translation commitments, business affairs and general health issues, I will only be able to do this in the short term and would prefer a dedicated team to handle this job in future.
In terms of compensation for this role, we’re thinking of offering a flat commission rate for each artist that you sign on with us. We intend to have an online submission form for artists to send their titles through for translation, and your job will be to reach out to artists we want to work with, inform them of our contract/business model, and then direct them to this submission form on our site in the event that they wish to collaborate.
We will try to keep a running list of artists that our translators have requested us to contract for your benefit. You are also free to contract any other artist you wish, however preference should be given to those our translators have actively requested.
Western NSFW Content Creators
While our primary focus is on translation of Japanese publications, we are also looking for English NSFW comic creators who wish to sell their work commercially. We will look at all submissions to see if they are of sufficient quality, but we encourage artists of all skill levels to submit their work. We would like to make this is a place for indie artists, and as long as you think your work is up to scratch then we would like to provide a place to commercialize your work in the same way that Japanese artists are able to on platforms like Fanza and DLsite. For now we are mainly looking at doujins/comics, but we’re more than open to accepting adult content of all kinds such as asmr/doujin voice works. By all means, feel free to reach out to us and we’ll try to find a way to incorporate you as best as we can.
Our 25% distribution fee applies to all products, regardless of format. If you are the sole contributor then you will receive the entirety of the wholesale price you specify, as outlined in our compensation section similar to Japanese artists. If multiple people have worked on the product then you will need to specify how you wish to split the earnings between contributors.
Please note that we will not be accepting submissions generated by AI. We can provide more concrete guidelines on allowable content and themes in future as we work with our lawyers, but at the very bare minimum we would like you to declare that any work you submit does not violate our internal guidelines, which includes the use of AI tools for illustrated works.
Japanese to English Translators
This is simply the translation of the script itself. We will ask authors to provide us with a copy of the Japanese script in an office document or similar text file format, as well as a copy of the Japanese version of the product itself. You will need to translate all dialogue, both inside and outside of speech bubbles. Sound effects and moans inside speech bubbles will also need translation, however any sound effects outside speech bubbles as well as background elements that you and your editor personally deem unnecessary may be left. If you wish to translate these elements, then please talk with your letterer and typesetter first as it will result in an increase in their workload.
Once you are finished translating the script, you will send it off the editor/QC and make appropriate revisions where they deem necessary. Once they have ticked off your script, it will be sent over to the typesetter.
We don’t require any formal language qualifications so long as you’re able to provide examples of projects you’ve worked on in the past that we can use to evaluate your abilities.
If we hire you, we would like to ask you for a list of authors whose works you wish to translate. If we secure a contract with one of your listed authors, we will try to allocate it to you if possible, or reserve it for you for a limited time if no other translators have listed the author as their preference. Otherwise the contract will be publicly available for all translators on the bounty board to pick up at their leisure.
Copy-editing and Quality Control
Your job will be to edit scripts passed onto you by the translator, ensuring they meet our quality guidelines. This will include basic spelling/grammar checking as well as identification of stilted dialogue. After it has been passed back to the translator, typeset and lettered, you will also need to go over the final product to make sure that the other team members adhere to the guidelines provided to their roles. This means pointing out typos and errors generated during typesetting, as well judging the overall quality of the letterer’s and typesetter’s work.
Please note that this is the only role that we do not allow to be taken on alongside other roles. We’re fine with allowing translation, typesetting and lettering to be handled by a single person, but for quality control reasons we will not allow translators to edit their own scripts, nor will we allow typesetters and letterers to be the final judges of the quality of work they themselves have produced.
Typesetters
Your job will be to transfer the translated script given to you onto the final product in a visually pleasing manner. You will be given the author’s .psd files (or equivalent) with toggle-able layers for the text to aid in this process. We will be making concrete style guides in the future for how you should go about this, but this will largely be for the benefit of quality checkers to ensure they have a standardized way of judging aesthetic aspects such as spacing, alignment and font choice. Once typesetting is complete, you will need to hand over the Photoshop files and translated script to the letterer so they can begin their work. Once the final product has been lettered, you may be required to make adjustments where the quality checker finds errors.
We’ll mainly be hiring from the scanlation community for now, and so long as you have examples of previous work that we can show us then we trust that you to able to go about your job according to your own stylistic preferences. For legal reasons, we ask that you provide us with a list of fonts that you wish to use for your projects so that we can ensure you have commercial licenses for any fonts that require them. We can help you obtain commercial license for any paid fonts you wish to use, within reason. In cases where we cannot due to financial constraints, then we will be able to suggest free alternatives. We will provide you with a font sheet prepared for internal use which we will update over time to include other typesetter’s preferences if you’re ever unsure.
Letterers
Your job will be to hand-draw sound effects, moans, and other textual elements that the author themselves have drawn in. This will be included in the translated script, which will be given to you along with the typeset Photoshop files. Due to the subjective nature of this work, we can really only ask that you keep in line with the style of the author’s original text. We ask that you are able to provide us with examples of your previous work, and as long as you show you’re able to produce visually pleasing/clean results then we trust you to coordinate with the quality checker in matters of personal taste. Once you have completed your job, you will need to send the files over to the quality checker, who may ask you to make revisions if the lettering is difficult to read.