Find or Request a Novel

Search, Browse, Popular, and requesting a novel

There are four ways to find something to read: the search bar for a novel you already have in mind, Browse for filtering the whole catalogue, Popular for what readers are into right now, and the Activity feed for what other readers are rating and discussing. If the novel isn't on the site at all, request it. Search by name before pasting a URL: most novels people go looking for are already here, and a search that finds one doesn't spend a request.

The Search novels bar in the site header looks up novels by title as you type and lists the first five matches with their cover and author. Press Enter, or choose All results in Browse under the matches, to open the full results in Browse with your words already in the title filter, with Fanfic set to Any.

The same bar takes a source link. Paste a link from a supported source and press Enter, or choose Request translation in the Request this novel box, to request it straight from the bar. This follows your Preview setting from the Request page and spends the same request or preview as asking on the Request page would. If you are signed out, you are taken to the Request page with the link in the box instead.

Browse#

Browse lists every novel on the site. The filters sit in a Filters card above the list, and every filter you apply is written into the page's address, so a filtered Browse page can be bookmarked or sent to someone.

Always visible#

  • Search by title: type part of a title and the list narrows after a short pause. While the advanced filters are expanded, press Apply instead; the same goes for the sort.
  • Sort and its direction (Desc or Asc): Newest, Last Updated, Views, Word Count, Chapter Count, Popularity, Rating Count or Rating. Rating puts novels that many readers rate well above a perfect score from one or two ratings. Until you choose one, the sort is automatic: Relevance while a title or author search is active, and Newest otherwise. A search keeps the sort you chose. Relevance has no direction, so the direction control disappears while it is the sort in use.
  • Fanfic: Any, Yes or No. Yes lists only fan fiction, No hides it. Fanfic is its own filter and doesn't use up the Genre filter: a fan fiction novel has a genre like any other.
  • Protagonist: Any, Male or Female.
  • Crossovers: Yes or No. It only appears once you have picked at least one fandom (see below).

Fanfic, Protagonist and Crossovers apply as soon as you choose. Fanfic and Crossovers are also remembered in your browser. The Fanfic choice is shared with Popular and the Activity feed, and all three start on Any if you've never chosen.

The advanced filters#

Select Expand on the Filters card for the rest. Changes in the expanded panel are applied with the Apply button; Reset clears every filter, and Notify me saves the current filters as an alert (see Saved-search alerts).

  • Author.
  • Genre and Status: choose one, or leave them on Any. The lists come from what's on the site. See Novel status for what each status means.
  • Fandoms: pick the fandoms to include or exclude. This is hidden while Fanfic is set to No, since only fan fiction has fandoms. Fandom names that contain a comma, such as "Smiling, Proud Wanderer", are treated as one fandom, in the picker and in shared links.
  • Tags: the same include and exclude picker.
  • Min Words and Max Words: from 50k up to 5M.
  • Updated Within, Updated Older Than, Created Within and Created Older Than: from 1 day up to 2 years.

For both Fandoms and Tags:

  • Picking a name includes it. Select a name's badge to switch it between included (green) and excluded (red), or its x to remove it.
  • The OR / AND switch decides how the included names combine: with OR a novel needs any of them, with AND it needs all of them.
  • Excluding a fandom removes its crossovers too. The Crossovers control only matters for included fandoms: No shows only novels whose fandoms all lie inside the ones you included, so a crossover with a fandom you didn't pick drops out.

When the filters are collapsed, a row of chips under the card shows what is active, and each chip has an x to remove just that filter.

When nothing matches#

If a narrowing filter leaves no novels, Browse says so and offers a one-click way out: Search all novels when Fanfic is limiting the list, or Include crossovers when crossovers are excluded. These change the current search only and leave your saved preference alone.

Page size#

Under the list, choose how many novels to show per page: 10, 20 or 50 (20 is the default). The choice is remembered and used on Browse, Popular and the Activity feed alike.

Novel status#

Every novel page shows the story's status, and Browse can filter by it. It describes the original book, not how far the translation has got:

  • Ongoing: the author is still writing it.
  • Completed: the story is finished.
  • Hiatus: an ongoing novel with no new chapter for a month. The site sets this itself.
  • Discontinued: the author stopped and the story has no ending. Only a moderator sets this.

Ongoing and Completed come from the source, and the site rechecks them daily where it can, so they can change on their own. When a moderator sets a status by hand, or approves a reader's status report, it is locked: the daily check and the automatic Hiatus no longer change it. A moderator can hand it back by setting it to Automatic. One thing always overrides a Hiatus or Discontinued status, locked or not: new chapters from the source move the novel back to Ongoing.

If a status looks wrong, report it from the novel page (Report, then Metadata and Status; see Reporting a novel).

Discontinued is about the book. It is not the Dropped status in your library, which only records that you stopped reading.

Popular ranks the site's trending novels. The buttons at the top set the period: Daily, Weekly, Monthly or All Time. A first-time visitor sees Weekly; after that it opens on whichever period you last chose.

Next to the period are two more controls:

  • Fanfic (Any, Yes, No), the same shared choice described above. Like Browse, Popular starts on Any until you choose.
  • Protagonist (Any, Male, Female).

An arrow beside a novel's rank shows how many places it moved since yesterday on that exact list: the period and filters you have chosen, All Time included. New marks a novel that wasn't on the list yesterday. A novel that didn't move has no arrow. Browse and the landing page never show them.

Activity feed#

Activity shows what other readers are doing on the site. It has three tabs:

  • General: novel activity such as ratings, plus public posts.
  • Reviews: reviews only.
  • Comments: chapter comments only.

The Fanfic control (Any, Yes, No) works here too and is shared with Browse and Popular, and the page size follows your choice above. Only what readers have left public appears; see Privacy settings for the switches that control it.

Requesting by name#

  1. Go to Request.
  2. Type the novel's name into the input instead of a URL.

The site searches supported sources and lists the novel under each source it found it on, so you can pick where to read it from, with a Preview link to check the source before adding it and an Add button to request it. If the novel is already on RandomTranslator, you see its cover and title marked "Already on RandomTranslator" instead of search results, with a Read button when you're signed in; the whole entry links to the novel, and it doesn't spend a search.

If nothing turns up, you get a message that no supported source was found, with a shortcut to search Google for the novel yourself, so you can find and paste a URL. Before you search, the page also links out to DaoSearch, an external novel search tool, to help you find a novel to request.

Name search requires signing in, but not a Patreon membership: every tier gets a monthly search allowance, and when your remaining searches run low the page shows how many you have left for the month. The box keeps what you typed after you submit, and if you are signed out it keeps your text through signing in.

Requesting by URL#

  1. Go to Request.
  2. Paste the novel's source URL into the input.
  3. Submit.

The source must be one of the supported sources. An unsupported domain is rejected with a message telling you so. DaoSearch's own Request a translation button brings you to the Request page with its link already in the box. Nothing is sent until you submit it.

A few links are turned into a search instead of a request, and spend nothing from your novel requests. The search itself works like any name search.

  • A DaoSearch book link (daosearch.io/...). If DaoSearch lists the book on Fanqie, Qimao or a fully free JJWXC page, the novel is added from there, as that site's own link would be. Otherwise the page searches our supported sites for the book by its Chinese title and author.
  • A Qidian, Faloo or Zongheng book link. These sites sell their novels, so the page searches our supported sites for the book.
  • A JJWXC novel that sells any of its chapters. Only fully free JJWXC novels are added from JJWXC, so the page searches our other sites for it.
  • A Fanqie novel that Fanqie has taken down. The page says "Fanqie no longer has this novel. Search other sites for it." and runs that search. Any other Fanqie or Qimao link is added directly.

What a request costs#

Name searches draw from your monthly search quota. A full request draws from your monthly novel requests and a preview from your monthly previews, two separate counts. A free account gets 1 preview a month and no novel requests; novel requests start at the Reader membership. A full novel is charged by its size, because a long novel takes far more fetching and translating than a short one: half a request under 200 chapters, 1 up to 2,000, and more beyond that. The exact rule and every tier's numbers are in How a novel request is counted.

  • The site only learns the chapter count once it has fetched the chapter list, so a request takes one full request up front. If the novel turns out to be short, half is handed back a moment later. Two short novels use one request between them.
  • Upgrade on a preview follows the same rule. The chapter count is already known by then, so the right amount is taken straight away.
  • The size is measured when the novel is added. An ongoing novel that later grows past 200 chapters isn't charged again.
  • The Limits page shows half requests as they are, for example "22.5 / 50".

Preview vs. full requests#

The Preview switch above the box on the Request page is on by default, and your choice is remembered. With it on, a request only fetches and translates the novel's first 50 chapters, useful for trying a novel before committing a full request to it. A preview novel is marked with a blue Preview strip across the bottom of its cover wherever the cover appears.

To get the rest of a preview novel, open its page, open its menu, and choose Upgrade. This spends novel requests, not a preview, and cannot be undone. A free account has no novel requests, so it can't upgrade. See Preview novels.

Tip If a novel has 50 chapters or fewer in total, requesting it as a preview adds the whole thing. There is nothing left to convert later.

After you submit#

The bottom of the Request page shows what is being fetched and translated across the site right now. It shows totals across all users, not where your own request sits in line.

You get a notification when your novel finishes: "Novel Added Successfully" (or "(Preview)" for a preview request), with a Read Now link.

When a request fails#

If fetching fails after your request was queued, you get a "Novel Request Failed" notification. It says in one plain sentence what went wrong (for example, that the source site no longer has the novel, or didn't respond), what to do next, and that the request was refunded. When the novel can be looked for on other sites, it has a Search other sites button that opens the Request page with the search filled in. Failed requests are refunded automatically, in full, whatever the novel's size: a failed request costs you nothing.

If you submit the same URL twice within a minute, the second submission is treated as the same request and is not charged again.

Reliability varies by source. The Sources section of the status page (linked as "Status" in the site footer) shows each source's current status and its 90-day uptime. Check it if a source seems to be failing consistently.

Duplicate novels#

If the novel you requested is already on the site (even under a different URL, a different source, or a title a mirror site changed), no copy is made. You get an "Already on RandomTranslator" notification with a link to the novel, and the request is refunded. This also covers the rare case where two requests for the same novel are processed at almost the same time.

If you spot two separate novel entries that are actually the same novel, report it (see Reporting a novel) rather than requesting it again. Merging duplicate entries is handled by moderators, and your library, ratings, and reading progress move over automatically when they do.