What is the difference between official and fan translations? Why is there different content in the Chinese and English editions? And why would it be worth it to wait for official releases if there are unofficial translations on the internet? 

Answers to these questions and more!

Afterwards, Chinese publishers can buy the rights to release the works as printed books if the webnovel is popular enough.

And popular is the keyword here because only if the story has enough fans who would be willing to buy the books, will publishers be willing to pick it up.

For the Chinese market, it is pretty straightforward to determine the popularity from the reads on the respective webnovel platform. But how do international publishers know if the same story would be popular for non-Chinese audiences? In many cases, through unofficial fan translations (see below for more details).

If an international publisher decides to translate and release one of those webnovels, they have to buy the publishing and distribution rights, the license, from the rights owners which are either the authors themselves or the platform that hosts them. 

Such licenses are limited by the language and the range. Meaning that you can buy an English license for the US only and that means you can translate the work to English and sell it in the US but in no other place. Most publishers would probably get the global distribution rights for their translation for obvious reasons (*cough* profit *cough*).

To obtain an officially released translation, you usually have to buy a printed book or an e-book if available. That is, of course, not for free but by spending money on official books, you financially support the authors and the artists involved in the design. Also, a higher sales revenue signals to the publisher that this kind of book, the author, the genre, etc. are popular and that makes it more likely that they will release more, starting a positive feedback loop.

Sadly, fan translations get taken down from the internet as soon as there is an official license for the corresponding language. For obvious reasons (*cough* profit *cough*). While this can be sad for the fans who poured their time and energy into the translation work, it is not necessarily a bad things. In multiple cases, fan translators whose works were popular, were recruited by publishers to do the official translation with the help and guidance of a professional team.

Before 2020, most international fans had to rely on fan translations to read Danmei. With its rising popularity and more and more works being licensed, that has changed. Whether you still prefer to read fan-made translations or like to read the official books is up to you in the end.

Personally, I prefer the official translations. Not only is it really hard to find fan translations after the work has been licensed (but not impossible), I just prefer a polished, well formatted work. Yes, I am a snob for language and yes, grammatical mistakes tick me off (,,¬﹏¬,,)

Besides, in fan translations, you never know which version of the story you will get or if it is complete. Publishers make sure to get the full, uncensored version with all the extra chapters and sometimes even with additional bonus extras just for the official release.

Recently, stricter censorship laws were established to further restrict depictions of love and intimacy between same-sex couples across a range of media including webnovels. In response to this, many well-known Danmei authors have switched from serialized releases to writing complete works before publishing to ensure compliance with the regulations and to avoid their works being cancelled mid-publication. Some authors have started to adjust their existing content as well in accordance to the rules.

I think this development is very concerning and I am worried how this will affect the Danmei landscape in the future. Luckily for English speaking and international readers, the publishers usually obtain the uncensored version directly from the authors. For things that were already written before the new laws, we can rest assured.

But for future works... Who knows? All we can do is observe the situation and make ourselves aware that those regulations are subject to change and might be revoked in the future.