ashy
I absolutely agree with what you are saying. I always intended to make my novel free for everyone while I was writing it. Even as I get ready to possibly move the whole thing over to Patreon, I'm still publishing my main novel's chapters for free on Patreon for people to enjoy.

The way I see it, the chapters I publish daily are still rough and unfinished. Of course, I edit them as much as I can, but I know it has a way to go. I always intended to refuse any contract that Webnovel would offer me because I disagree with spending so much for you guys to read a book and would prefer to keep my rights to my book. I was a reader too before I became an author and always thought the price for stones was ridiculous!

Poche That would be wonderful if they would do that! I mean, the method won't stop everyone, but for someone like me who is just an uncontracted author, I doubt they would bother spending time pirating it.

        Poche
        Your suggestion is terrible, hope they won't implement it.
        Trust me, it inconveniences real readers way more than it can ever inconvenience pirates.
        They have something like this on the Chinese site. What comes out of it? I can't easily copypaste words to my dictionary, I have to either write them by hand (and it takes lots of time), or... bypass it so I can copypaste. And trust me on this, the second one is not so hard to do if you are an advanced user (just two clicks more actually). Way easier than trying to write hieroglyphs into the dictionary, or even English words if you need to type them manually. Mind you, not everyone on this site is fluent in English.

        So it would only be inconvenient to users.
        I assume pirates know what I know, not like it is some hidden knowledge.

        I looked at inkspired too. same there, I can bypass it and it only inconveniences me as a reader that I can't highlight the text as I read (which I really like doing)
        I'm not saying that protecting writing is a bad thing. But inconveniencing your reader, while protecting nothing, certainly is.

            CrazyTree Ahh good point. Many readers are English second language here. Funny moment on my end... While I was reading your part about highlighting words as you read, I was doing so myself. LOL

                BabyTanuki
                Yeah, you see. I didn't mean to dishearten you, but nothing you can do will be effective. Actually going to patreon won't be too, if they really want to pirate your work, copying from patreon is the same.

                The most you can do (and in my opinion, it is the way to go about it) is to find a way for those who are reading from pirate sites to come to real you.
                Unlike SnoozySloth is saying, unfortunately, not everyone there knows that it's a pirating site. (When I was younger I was there a lot because they pop up first on search engines, and I didn't know all that complicated stuff about pirating when I was 13 or 14.) Many people who only read and don't know hardships of being an author can be deceived. They might even think that they are supporting the real author.
                It is sad, but it is the truth.

                So, be strong.
                And as you can't really destroy them, find a way to use them. Or ignore them. As SnoozySloth says, they won't bring you money anyway, so why worry about them))

                I hope you won't get disheartened. Ganbatte!)))

                    Poche
                    Probably wouldn't work anyways. I'm pretty sure it's just a bot grabbing the plain text of the chapters from the HTML code. Pirates will always find a way to get their hands on things. The best prevention method is making content easily available so that people don't sail the high seas. For example, Netflix really helped kill a lot of pirating. On the flip side, there are plenty of people that pirate video games because DRM can make it difficult for real buyers to even enjoy the game properly.

                      CrazyTree Thank you. Yes, the most hurtful thing about the whole situation was that they did not even come to me. If they had given me the ability to upload and manage things on their website, I would have been willing to do so. It isn't like I am hard to get a hold of... I have my discord right there for them to join.. But, because they went about it sneakily AND didn't even give me credit as the author, I am just angry.

                        angkong
                        WN blocked my 'thank you page' I created in my novel to the people who support me on patreon.

                        (Sorry, I don't speak your language. I tried my best to answer based on Google translate...)

                            21 days later

                            BabyTanuki Thank you. there is probably one more reason why there are pirated sites. I myself have found some to have better reading infrastructure than QI. the tap to get next chapter is sometimes not working right or it needs a large amount of bandwidth (internet) than is expected... i cant even file an official complaint because it is very inconsistent.i read a lot of books of QI in other sites simply because it loads faster and smoother.
                            But you could mention in the comments to please read the novel on xx site. So when the pirates copy, they copy your comments too!

                                ashy
                                Have an Android phone?
                                If yes then install Firefox web browser. Then install the extension uBlock Origin. It'll block ads and save you a ton of bandwidth and battery life.

                                    That website is quite infamous for being untouchable and immortal since the website its really good at going offline. Example website goes offline no matter what you do can't reconnect use another device or refresh your browser then you can connect to it.
                                    I used to read novels that were bombarded with ads and popups from Novelupdates on that site nowadays people don't really bombard annoying ads ,so most people have forgotten about that website.

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