So this will probably fall on deaf ears, I'll acknowledge that from the start.

SS are far too expensive for normal readers. I imagine a rather small percentage of webnovel users are stupid enough to actually buy them since, per novel, it's easily 5 or 6 times (more probably!) the price of a full hardback book IRL or even more times the price for ebooks from Amazon and other such services.

Yes, you are not likely to find wuxia and such on a western website, but do not belittle western novels because of this. By charging so much for SS, you are ruthlessly gouging customers for short term profit using fairly typical microtransaction mentality against them. Before long, people will get sick of this and resort to either piracy or just leave altogether and go back to reading western fantasy (I personally recommend people read the kingkiller chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss).

I think a subscription based service is the best way to go for qidian in this regard. Look at how huge Spotify is for example and look at how big Netflix is. These services are so massively successful because they embody the western capitalism mentality of VALUE FOR MONEY.

I believe that with the number of novels brought to us from our eastern friends, the speed and quality of translation and the frequent updates would make web novels a worthy subscription service able to keep people around for much longer. Not to mention people like myself who would otherwise spend nothing on SS ever would actually be likely to subscribe.

It's simple: monthly fee for unlimited premium chapters, keep daily free SS for free readers, limit downloaded chapters (for offline reading) to 100 at a time or so. With this, people will have to sub for more than a month as they won't be able to download entire books in one day and free users will not be affected. Not to mention some of these books will take years to fully translate even at a high rate of 2/3 chapters a day. This means people will sub for long periods of time. It would be a much more profitable and long term service for Qidian.

    Neverender Thank you for your support. Sadly I dont know if anyone from QI is responsible for reading these suggestions or if it's just here to make us feel better. Dont think ive ever seen an official post on the forums outside of announcements :(

      BlackStarDeceiver Just some extra maths here, but the current exchange rate for SS is $0.02 for 1 SS.

      I have seen a number of novels on this site/app with over 2000 chapters in country of origin. So with some simple math we see that, discounting the typical 100 or so free chapters at the start, the price to read the whole novel at an average of 10 SS per chapter would be $380 at least! This is simply outrageous, its almost a complete scam. I hope QI think of a better alternative.

        Part of me would like to agree with suggesting the Kingkiller Chronicles. But it's been... 5 years? since his second book of the 3 book series was released. And, I just checked his website. Instead of releasing the third book, he's re-releasing the first book with 50 extra pages of stuff...
        Great story, but I refuse to promote a story that might not get finished. I'm also afraid the ending is going to suck. By "suck," I mean that I expect it will be a sad and disheartening ending.

        As for the subscription idea. It's good, I actually suggested it to a different groups years ago, and I was happy to see they took it, though I doubt it had anything to do with me, lol. But Qidian has already gone down the path of greed. It would be very hard for them to turn back. They have too many translators/books, and it would probably be a slow start. It's like that Chinese proverb about dismounting from a moving tiger.
        Also, given their level of greed, I wonder if they would make a reasonable subscription setup. If their setup sucked, it might make things even worse than now.

          lozlo Haha you are right, the third book is still vaporware. Would you believe that he announced on his blog that he finished it some time in 2013!? First draft obviously. I think he took the post down since then, probably because his editor told him off. He must be rewriting the whole book at this rate.

              Yeah. I remember seeing, at some point in time, that he was done with what I think of as the outline of the story. But he's been working on the finer details, or so I tell myself. Still, regardless of the reason, it's not published and has no ETA on how long it might be until it's finished.

                BlackStarDeceiver
                There are many ways for WN to earn money. However, there were 6 big systems used.

                1. Make a book and sell it. This is Amazon. Gravity Tales (Webnovel's sister company) aimed at this.

                2. Donation. Very few people donate. Ask those free software maker. This is 'Gift' system in Webnovel. Remember only paid SS are real donation.

                3. Premium Unlock. Pay as you read. This is what Webnovel used. You have mentioned its weakness. However, Webnovel's financial department knows better. Sigh... Freemium Games had showed how this is successful. While Qidian is very successful in China. As in other thread... The problem for me is the pricing.

                4. Patreon System. Warning. I am proponent of this system. This is a combination of Donation and Whaling. This is a proven method which many fans-translation used. However, most fans-translator didn't pay the Original Chinese authors that made this could be done (This is illegal to publish actually.). This is used at WW with a problem too. However, personally I prefer this.

                5. Subscription. Like what you said. Kindle Unlimited are this. However, this made another problem. MANY authors didn't get the benefit. So you will end with certain novel. Why Harry Potten in KU, that is Amazon gave 'subsidy' for the reader. There is a negativity. This system would 'encourage' word counts cheating more like in Kindle Unlimited. Authors would write 'stupid' words since most read based on number of words reads. Another problem. Webnovel is FAR smaller than Netflix or Spotify. It might be doable, but WN needed to grow first. This also didn't respect fast translation. Webnovel could to prolong a translation project. So rather than translating LoHP as fast as WN could, they would translate 3 chapter per week. (12 per month for example) and make you subscribe for longer. There is also this bad possibility of a reader would only subscribe after a novel completely translated, this making translating 2000 chapters novel costly and unprofitable than 10 chapters novel. So... this is also bad. Other problem would appear from sharing the money. LoHP is very popular. What about some originals? What about free writers of fanfiction? Erotica? BL? It would drive some authors away... At pay per read system, you pay for what you read. Using this also will cut many people who only wanted to read 1 novel.

                6. Ads. This is use in Wattpad and RR... However, that is the quality. You get free writer who want to promote their novel to you. Quality writer will take their book from the platform and publish it on Amazon or traditional publisher. It turned the site into Alpha Site. If you didn't pay, then you are the product. Wattpad added adsharing which make author make more chapter with less contents so you will have to see more ads.

                    MasterRabbink I appreciate the input. Currently almost anything would be a preferable alternative.

                    I hear that in China SS are 10% of what they are in our version of the app. It's actually disgusting. Qidian might be successful there, but if the SS model stays the same here, it will not work.

                        I'm tired of trying to voice my complaints of SS, they don't care because of whales. Once you catch up just read it on another site because they don't want your money they want the wealthy peoples money. I've given up on Q.I as a company, if i was an investor they would be the last thing I'd sink money into.

                          lozlo Wait, he's re-releasing the first book? WHY?! It was an example of super tight, near-perfect writing!

                              BlackStarDeceiver You seem like a lovely, reasonable human being. But the likelihood of QI actually taking your advice is about the same likelihood as Rothfuss ever releasing Doors of Stone...

                                  NotADingo Well given his trend of actions over the years, Pat is just as greedy as QI when it comes to milking his work. He's done nothing but release card games and merchandise, attend book signings to self promote and now re-releasing the first book before he even finished the series.

                                  The mans getting old, he's reached the "good author dangerzone" of 60 years where all my favourite authors have died :S

                                  He'd better finish it before he knocks off. Especially since he's teased more books based in kvothe's world... maybe that's what's delaying him?

                                      bachingchung Since QI come from a country with some of the worst problems with plagiarism in the world, I find it hard to believe they won't copy something.

                                          Web Novel Novel Ask