Haitang Books enters the English Danmei Scene

[douqi]

Haitang Books, the new US branch of established Hong Kong-based publisher Cherry-Apple Cultural and Creative Ltd, has announced its acquisition of North American English-language licences for a number of danmei titles. These appear to be:

• A Certain Someone by Musuli
  
• Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know (aka a title translation I absolutely hate) by Cyan Wings
  
• Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating by Jiang Zi Bei
  
• I Can Do It by Jiang Zi Bei
  
• Mist by Wei Feng Ji Xu
  
• Don't Pick Up Boyfriends from the Trash Bin by Qi Jing Nan Qu
  
• Marrying a Demon by Yang Su
  
• The Approach by Zhuo An
  
• The Blue Dust Trilogy by Chu Tu

This information was taken from a post by Twitter user skyarise, who appears to have gotten it from Haitang Books' official website. At the time of writing, however, all this information is no longer available via the website, which now has a generic 'coming soon' message on it.

Haitang Books' official Twitter account is here. From its responses to readers, it appears to be very much following the Rosmei model (Rosmei being initially a distributor of uncensored Chinese-language print books before it entered the English-language licensing scene). It has a region-limited licence, is focused on print books only (though it seems to be suggesting it may be looking into ebooks for authors who haven't signed with a major webnovel platform), and is looking to distribute via informal group orders and indie retailers rather than making use of big distribution networks (e.g. Amazon, B&N in the states) despite its location. It also hasn't announced any release dates for its licensed titles as yet.

The pros as I see it are that Haitang Books, like Rosmei, is familiar with the mainland danmei scene and seems willing to invest in titles that some publishers might think too risky (e.g. anything set in the modern day, anything that doesn't yet have an established international readership/a completed fan translation). I have a couple of (Chinese-language) books published by the Hong Kong-based main branch, and the designs and layout are very attractive and a refreshing change from e.g. the sameness of Seven Seas' many vaguely cartoony couples covers.

The cons as I see it are the same as those applying to Rosmei, in particular limited distribution and difficulty in actually getting hold of the books, and poor translation quality and/or failure to grasp (positive) translation norms that international readers expect (e.g. Rosmei seems to have decided not to transliterate terms of address in the majority of cases, something I picked up when going through one of their translation previews, and seems to be confirmed by Rosmei's replies to readers on Twitter). Incidentally, having once worked with a CN->EN fan translator who is based in mainland China, I found her extraordinarily resistant to transliteration (e.g. I kept telling her that 'jiejie' should not be translated as 'sister', which most English-first readers would likely parse as a title of address for a nun. This was not taken on board), so it may be that this is a translation norm peculiar to that particular milieu. That doesn't mean I have to like it or think it's good.

Comments

[duckprintspress]

ah, I was just coming to come and make a post about it.

I'm pretty hype.

(my Tumblr post with similar info)

I appreciate your insight on the pros and cons, that's really good info.

There's also this reddit thread where more people report that the site was up earlier but is not currently. Methinks they were not expecting such an enthusiastic response, lol.

[halfcactus]

Tysm for the info! Sad that it's once again print books only (for now?).

Lol'd because of the Twitter posts you link to (about Rosmei) was originally complaining about using the wrong kind of dash (en-dash instead of em-dash) but it was not addressed ajsdkjfa;sfja;

[anne]

Augh I started learning Chinese because I wanted to know how drama characters were addressing each other! It's super important and I wish translators would stop flattening the distinctions!

[geraineon]

Crossing fingers translation will be decent (... very unfortunate if they too prefer to translate all terms of address). I'm excited for many of these titles! Thank you for bringing the information here and for the breakdown of pros and cons.

[douqi]

I guess it's good to see a publisher willing to actually license modern-set works (instead of the Seven Seas model of 'completed fan translation, historical setting, ideally a xianxia').

[douqi]

Ahahaha that is very on brand for Rosmei.

[douqi]

I saw Jiang Zi Bei and thought of you!

[douqi]

Yeah, and publishers also have to bear the blame as well as they have the final say over things like these.

[anehan]

*sighing at the NA-only license*

[douqi]

Such a pain that they can't/don't distribute globally.

[ehyde]

Haha, I went and looked for myself because I remembered learning about em- and en- dashes in different countries' punctuation standards and specifically that Singapore I think can use a mix of British and American punctuation rules so hey, maybe it was fine? but nope. They really just did it wrong.

[duckprintspress]

I'm willing to ship things forward, fwiw. I've done it for folks before.

[anehan]

Oooh, nice! Thank you! I'll probably get in touch if they aren't available in any European store. (I'm holding out hope for Atom Comics.)

[duckprintspress]

fingers crossed!!! I know it's been a relief to me that I can get the Rosmei titles through Yiggybean, I'm sure there'll be some of the same places who are distributing Rosmei books stepping up to help get these to buyers in non-licensed markets.

[geraineon]

<3

[halfcactus]

Ah, I had no idea that punctuation standards can vary, so TIL! I'm just gonna assume they'll fix it in print. ^^;