I won't say anything abou the point concerning quality cause that's quite true.
"But", if you calculate all those chapters (lets say 730) into their total word length (lets say 1,5k per chap = 1 milllion words) , compare those with regular books (50k to 100k words per book) and their prices (5-20 dollar/euro/pound whatever)) you would see that it's fairly reasonable. At least not a total rip off.
You shouldn't see a CN webnovel as one book but as one book series instead. Coupled with premium, it's a series you have instantly access too. Of course the price to pay for everything in this series will be higher.
You would pay more for the HP series than just buying a single book (bundles excluded)
Gradualy fading interest. Am I the only one ? Personal toughts and suggestions.
Multiple this value for 4 and that's how much i would spend with my country currency T.T
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hehehe that's a lotta math right there. I have never spent a penny on spirit stones but I am still up to date on every premium novel because I have separate accounts for each one. Maybe you could do that too. XD
FleetingClouds Now remove from that 1 million word count all the words that can be attributed to
A: repeat content
B: Fluff
C: Fillers that does not advance story by any single amount. I have lost count of how many chapters that has been virtualy worth nothing but fluff.
D: Compare a full novel to a series, is pretty accurate. Lets see The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. The longest series I have ever read. Total price for 14 Books with page count breaking over 500 for each one. Is on amazon right now 133USD About 10 or so usd above the full novel listed above. Let me tell you the value there is no where near close. Take a close look at word count. First book alone is 261,290 words and its less then 4 usd. Sure its of the cheapest ones. But the most expensive ones being around 10 usd each. But that would still only translate to roughly 40usd for 1 million words. By one of the biggest most detail oriented writers that has ever lived imo. So how is that even close to the 123usd value for the 731 chapters im just using as an example here, a novel with voer 3000 chapters would be insane priced and still struggle to get close. So no, the value is nowhere near fair.
Zhevons
It's not that unreasonable, actually. Because though you could choose to just spend 'some' money on the books, there a few more choices; such as simply 'hoarding' the SS you get for free everyday or by 'hoarding' the chapters until, one day, they will eventually be free.
I believe it has more to do with patience and how much the reader wishes to read the books. Since, technically, without the SS system and the ads, webnovel has no other ways of gaining revenue, so this is quite biased. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
HeWhoReadsBooks Currently, chapters won't become free, ever. The only way to read them for free is with free SS and an ever increasing amount of novels need those. So you either have to make dozens of accounts to keep reading, or drop them until you have enough free SS in a dozen or so years.
Just counting the 8 novels I read here, the 7th of which will be premium on the 23rd, I would need over 100 ss per day to read them. My choice is simply dropping anything that goes premium, as with the current state going premium is just a plain disregard for the fans that supported a series.
I stopped looking for new stuff, as it's only a matter of time before I would be forced to stop reading, so why bother looking just for the disappointment that is guaranteed to happen?
FleetingClouds 1 million words of quality does not have the same value as 1 million words of sub-par quality. It is not reasonable.
It's like paying 50 bucks for a large cheese burger meal at McDonalds, but I'd rather pay that much for a good dinner at a nice restaurant.
These novels are like fast food, and I dont wish to pay premium for McDonalds. I now have 20+ books on my reading list that have now gone premium and more incoming. If many books are going premium, then wtf is premium?
IntuitiveIntrovert Yes I could make more accounts, but that doesnt fix the problem of the overpricing. I dont mind paying, but I dont like getting ripped off. I may get to the point where I just drop all my novels in disgust for the blatant scam.
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Zhevons I completely agree. However I am unfortunately one of those idiots who keeps digging his hole deeper. Im aware but I cant drop these stories that I enjoy. It's a bittersweet feeling.
QI does not value its readers and customers. They only treat us as cash cows for the guilible and loyal people. If they dont treat us with respect, then they dont deserve our respect. I really wish there was a way to face slap them like they do in the novels.
At this point, if they are somehow able to get sued and have a class action lawsuit against them, I feel blackhearted enough to jump on this bandwagon. I feel angry enough to destroy this rip off sect down to the roots to stop this evil sect from turning more people into soul slaves.
Zhevons
Actually man your right about the scam part
WN is a scam, there are dozens of other sites that earn money from ad revenue and patreon but WN had to get its own in house currency which is overpriced as hell. Its It's seriously a waste of money paying qidian cuase its a terrible service. They dont quality check their TL or promise a steady release rate while commuting with their readers. There only difference between qidian and the hundreds of other sites out there is that qidian is horribly hated/overpriced etc. Lets not even mention qidian stealing others TL so you basically paying qidian for something thats not theirs. And ive now basically just summed up why most of the novel community just pirates instead of paying qidian
Zhevons
Point A-C are subjective and can't be used to determine the value of a book. There are too many other factors involved and I didn't deny that most CN are bad or repetitive but if someone is willing to read then pay the apporpriate price. "Hey that book is full of shi1, give it to me for 2dollar," "Hey, your books sounds decent, I will pay you 8 dollars, be grateful!"
Point D: you lucky one. I would have to pay 23 euro on amazon for that same book. Or 18 for kindle (dont have kindle). Where is justice now?
But again, you are comparing your definition of what a great book is to its price and project that on other books. But this way to determine a value of a book is not realiable. Simply put,
I still think that CN aren't overpriced objectively as books (book series). Would I pay the money for these CN? Of course not! Except for those rare gems (WMW, Er Gen novels, some others) I wouldn't do so as most CN simply aren't that unique or good.
Dao_Of_Uselessness
Thats really shi1 if they dont consider the economical situation of your country and expect you to pay the same amount in usd !
Gamercat
that's subjective and I don't think thats how prices are made/should be determined.
COME AND JOIN
All their novel is overprice and lack Quality............ some novel start good but due to QI wanted it to be prolong they prolong the story in which the novel lost QUALITY..................
First book on the uk site, which is same market as the eu overall. So I would like to know which version of amazon has the first book for 23 euro that is not a hardcover copy.
Second. I do understand your point, I even agree to it to a point. But you stating its not overpriced can not be defended. The reason is this: LN are nothing but entertainment, in this case written entertainment. In our market its compeditor is mainly Amazon. And compared to Amazon, on word count alone its way way way more expensive then even authors like Robert Jordan, David Webster. Or since Harry Potter was used as an example.
Thats the whole of Harry Potter, for less then 40 Pounds. Page count is 3300 ish The first book of the Wheel of time was over 200 000 words for around 700 pages. That means this is around 4-5 times as long. Lets for fun say its 900 000 words. The price they charge for this completed successfull masterwork, and compared to the CN LN is imense. In what way, are LN of a higher quality ? Of what way are they more worthy as entertainment ? Do we get alot of fillers in these books ? Do we get alot of fluff ? I know these points are subjective and alot of masterwork LN's dont have alot of them. But that does not change the fact that alot of novels do have it, and are being priced based on the same system. Word count, so I am targeting only word count on their pricing for now as the baseline for them being overpriced.
Their only selling feature, is that things gets delivered "daily" or "weekly". Giving us small constant fixes. Its like microtransactions where they want us to keep paying tiny bits for each chapter but a hell of alot over time. I dont mind again spending money, I have bought LN's that has gone up on Amazon, I have bought stones before to feed my addiction, but I managed to get out of the addiction and look at things objectivly and I feel cheated. So if you wish to continue to defend the pricing. Then please give propper argumentation for why it is acceptable to charge more for say Mid Level LN's novels, based on word count alone. Then works like Harry Potter, Wheel of Time etc the MASTERWORKS from this side of the globe among other things. I want to know what makes their work worth so much more, for the level of quality we are getting on average.
Regarding Spirit Stones itself, its not a bad system. Authors deserve to get payed, the publisher deserve to get payed, translators deserve to get payed. But right now their overcharging. The free SS we are getting a day, is perhaps just enough to read 1 chapter for a longer novel, or 2-3 for a smaler ones. I could create more accounts, but first of that i do feel is a cheat, not what is intended and perhaps against their ToS not recalling. And do they deserve to be listened to on that ? Na, I dont think so not with how their treating the readers. But I still have my own prinsiples and wont make more accounts. But this is a little of topic for my post sorry about that. Lets get back to SS, the free ones. I will continue to get those, but because the amount you get, is only enough to read so limited content, and since it expires after 30 days also. It means I can not save them up for anything. I have to "keep" spending them day by day, log in day by day to get them. So I can follow 1 perhaps 2 novels with that. It does not change that picking up new novels is out of the question, as when they go premium and more and more does rapidly. I cant afford to keep reading them. I have spent around 20 USD a month on Qi the last few months. That has let me "catch up a bit" but i still feel cheated of it. This month I wont, because its simply not worth the money. Your thoughts on this ?
Apologies, those links do not work. But go to co.uk amazon version, search wheel of time or harry potter and one can find them.
In last 6days spend over 60$ on SS just to read novels, I already spend it all(ss)...
Vistarion woah dude, I hope you’re joking or just wealthy enough for it to be pocket change, simple math enough to tell ya it ain’t worth it lol. I could had bought LNs or Manga with that much
Zhevons
1.Point: I am living in germany. There is no hardcover for the books, only softcover on amazon. I guess I was born in the wrong country :(
2.Point. You have persuaded me subjectively. CN aren't worth the same as real quality books. "But" there is still a certain amount of work that has been into these works. Something which should be payed appropriately. I don't know if westeners need to pay more for SS than chinese. That would be shit (though translations cause more work, so I guess it gets even).
I like your example of microtransactions. In the end, the reader needs to act more responsible and not fall into the trap (addiction). Thats the problem, I wouldn't usually read a lot, but on WebNovel everything is basically instantly available similiar to Kindle maybe. I haven't payed yet for Webnovel and won't. Currently spent my SS on The World Online, till it gets finished. I can take care of my "addiction". I have other stuff to do in RL lol. And Grandfather of Champions is still free as well.
The publisher decides on these prices, which ... I guess are overpriced :) for the reason that high quality CN are put on the same level and price as low quality CN. But then again, who decides what is worth what? That's why Qidian made everything equal (SS per fixed words) and let readers decide where they put their SS on. Which resulted in this conflicting and frustrating feeling/situation I think.
What if people decided that CN xy was worth less in quality and therefor made the SS cost sink? Then the auhtor would be payed less just because of subjective belives.
If everything was equal like right now (hypthetical mind experiment), then those CN which are more popular will get payed more for than those lower quality CN. And this could motivate the auhtor to make his or her work better to get more money. Maybe there should be more incentitives for authors in China based on Rankings so as to motivate them more,
So I think for now the only viable solution is for the reader to focus on only those (s)he is interested in. Maybe paying with free SS in the beginning until SS pay costs are smaller and then to pay with real money (if desire is great enough). Of course everyone wants to read as much as possible as cheap (free) as possible like back in the days but this was just a sweet dream and people need to wake up now and accept it. I think WebNovel will adjust their Pricing Policy overtime when more CN get published, more people begin to read and see how unbalanced everything is. Maybe.
Paying for these overpriced shitty books should and always be never recommended. Yes there are entertaining books. But with the shitty word count system as a basis for a books value. You can bet that most if not all of these "books" if finished compiled and reduced of all the fillers, I'd expect less than half will remain. I dont mind paying for good services. But this is not it. There are morons enough out there who would gladly pay for these so called service anyway sadly enough.