Veronica8 You are right, we will provide more suggestions rather than cold numbers in the future. It just requires a few patches to upgrade. In addition, for new authors, I personally believe that they really need to keep on writing and updating every day, no matter how those numbers talk, updating and writing will be necessary.
So my little post was actually read by staff. 
Everything I would’ve said in response was already said, but I’m glad to see that WN is listening. I do hope that the year long suggestions will eventually be implemented.
I never thought that my post would be read by the webnovel staff, and I appreciate that they did it, so they can know what the authors really want or what the readers think.
I sincerely think that these statistics can scare a bit a novice author who has no idea what those numbers are and what they represent but as many people say this data would not be very useful since what an author does is to write, he is not selling books In a store and from which you need to know the sales statistics, this tool would be useful if it were like this.
@Chryiss CCmei CKtalon @WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL Shiksha_Jerath @Veronica8
Thanks everybody for your opinions and ideas.
WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL Thank you very much for responding.
I apologise if my feedback may have come across harsh. I really do appreciate that you are trying out new features to make our book writing and reading experience more meaningful. I do want to support what you guys do. That's why I am vocal, because I'm passionate about Webnovel. I like to see you drive progress to your goals and be seeing this journey happen.
Back to the stats, I think in this respect, as I've said before, maybe something of a pilot with a handful of us here might have been ideal before prod release. These writers can beta test for a period, capture screenshots and contribute to an FAQ. They can be your change advocates and crowd support for a release like this. So when you release to production, we already know about it, can be excited for the change and back a feature like this all the way. An instant reaction like this will be less likely.
Yes, we do need a stats feature, but it also needs to be meaningful to writers and there are different levels here (power rankers, new starters, high views...). That's why I suggested the two types. A light version for starting out and lower viewed books and a privileged version for books that will really benefit with the new dashboard. :smile_cat:
Thanks again for responding.
Honestly I don't think what you said was harsh at all and I thank you as a fellow author (and lurker) for speaking out so well.
Besides the forum post was started to share our opinions. It was an honest discussion of pros and cons,and general thoughts. People should be allowed to see the issues and such.
A popular opinion for writers, especial non power rankers, is that just that something else would be more "relevant" to us.
On a slightly different angle.
Having stories with similar names can prevent you from ever seeing the stats from one of them. I, for example, am unable to see the data for my main novel. (It 100% reverts to the novel of a similar name)
Edit: and since I complained it suddenly works as intended. Oh well.
StenDuring That's usually how life works. :joy: "I'm telling you the truth, I swear!" Lol~
Poche haven't been logging into desktop mode for past 2 weeks. Let me take a good look at the new enhancements. Hope it motivates the authors further this way
Is there a function to reshuffle the chapters if I happen to publish one that was not supposed to be published? My chapters are numbered so I hope I never make a blunder anytime in the future
PaperbackWriter there is. It's takes a bit of work as you have to delete, go into the trash, restore to draft. Once it's in draft, you can then publish in the order you want.
I was hoping for a function like this. Rather, I'm hoping they add in more options lol
Veronica8 I was thinking that it would be an easier way to do it. Lol... So I better be careful everytime I publish new chapters though. Luckily my chapters are numbered so I just follow the sequence.
The new features looked rather fun to see actually. But there is a bug. Under the dashboard, I am unable to change to my current one (I've got one ongoing and one dormant title) and when I clicked to go to my current one, the screen remained at my dormant one instead.
I am not going to lie, if they gave us formatting, I would go completely re-edit every published chapter I have. As far as what the analytics offer, if they gave us any indication of what it all means I'd be slightly more interested in it. Currently, it means nothing to me.
First of all, I love stats and especially with a background in Geology and Pure Science. But I have to agree with some of the comments about my motivation being hit. This was introduced during the week I took a 1-week break from releasing, so when I came back to declining stats I was crushed. LOL
But formatting along with this info (Which I find useful. Harsh, but useful) would have been sweet. Maybe budgetary constrictions are at play, but the suggestion of Beta testers would be cool.
GabrielKross You will see it very soon
Poche Hello, I'm a new author and I don't quite yet fully understand the statistics. It said "Weekly" report, but the graph shows per day stats, does that mean that It gets refreshed every week?
Or do we see the stats real time?
Poche Hello, I'm a new author and I don't quite yet fully understand the statistics. It said "Weekly" report, but the graph shows per day stats, does that mean that It gets refreshed every week?
Or do we see the stats real time?
I actually like seeing such analytics and it is useful to know when your story has the most traffic. The reason is that you can release the chapter in time before rush hour instead of missing out on it.
When I select most popular I don't get to see the books with the most views ever, most comments and likes. I get to see the books which recently had the most traffic.
I'm currently reading a novel which I only coincidentally found which now has over 1k chapters. It's monitized yet I only found it recently by accident. It also happens to be one of the best books I've read on here and held my attention to this point still despite my annoyance with spirit stones and having to wait for chapters to escape from privilege custody.
I think that if that author looks into these analytics and the subject I am about to delve into, he could gain a significantly larger fan base.
Shiksha_Jerath hey don't worry about it. I haven't even published a single chapter or novel yet and it shows red marks all over the page.
That said, I'm setting up a freelance gig at the moment and got to learn about SEO. Basically there is a whole lot you can do to help people find your stuff through using keywords in specific places and ways combined with a bunch of other stuff.
The moral of the story is, that unless you set actively set up a system in order to promote your story and or look into a service where someone good at this stuff will help you out doing so it will be unlikely for people to even find you.
The tags for your story, title and all such things are immensely important, they're a science. People search based on keywords. I for example use reincarnation as the most used keyword to find new stories, regardless of whether they're actually transmigration most of the time.
I noticed that my top results all have that keyword in their title. This type of knowledge falls under that SEO stuff and knowing what keywords people use the most. They are relevant to your story and will provide a drastic increase to its visibility if you make it match.
As a result if I search on reincarnation I'm more likely to get someones story as a top result that has used this word in its title, summary,tags, cover image name, author name and abbreviations. Than I am to get someone with a genuinely good title but without my keyword used anywhere of in a smaller amount. In addition most stories I click on have an appealing image in combination to a title that appeals to me.
The amount of stories I simply don't click on simply because I don't like the picture or they don't have one are tremendous.
For example I like apocalyptic stories, there's a dude with a mansion or something in the title and has a crowded image of some sleezy kid with a bunch of women stuffed in the picture. I dont like the crowd or the kids face. So I've never clicked the story.
This stuff might sound odd at first, but everyone including you makes such decisions unconsciously whenever they browse. If you get the right image for your story, you'll see a larger fanbase than if you have the wrong one.
Take the warlock in a magus world for example. I decided to read that story because the image looked cool and the possible controversy around the title peaked my interest. The character in the image was not recognisable but looked like a cool warlock who meant business. Had that warlock worn a rainbow outfit and a carebear face... I would never have considered that same story.
These analytical tools all exist so you can monitor in near real time what effect your changes to your story description, title and images make.
That said I am not an expert on SEO but I can guarantee that its a subject worth looking into if you need your content to be found. These tools will help you do that as well as take advantage of the data provided.
Getting your story uploaded just before primetime should get it to have a small boost in visibility for being a new result and cause people to find you faster. Same for if you upload just before primetime and people search for recently updated. That way you won't be on the bottom of that list.
The more information you get access to will also allow you to adjust your actions to that information . If youre able to see that people aren't willing to wait a month for each chapter than perhaps its time to step up your release rate. I personally drop stories if they don't update within a month.
That's why whilst this stuff might feel counterintuitive and pointless is actually a fantastic tool for those willing to put the work in.
The requested formatting tools will only screw with legibility on the mobile phone apps. Where a large portion of users read from. Its better to work on your formatting with the current tools and get that perfect than try and make stuff more legible by throwing more crap into the mix...
Hatake_Shirou 'm not sure what the primetime is. Is it calculated by China time zone? If the country who read my book the most is, let's say, USA, not China, but I'm not in neither of them, what's the right time to publish?
About retention features and book performance, it would be nice to have a feature which says how many times each chapter was read, what are your most popular chapters (by number of reactions), and even when your reader decides to drop your book (did you make a huge mistake in some crucial chapter?). That's what matters to me.
