Webnovel.Forum

What is your opinion about the news feature in Inkstone?
Are there useful to the author?
Can those number motive the author?
Are the value show in those news feature real?
This new feature will be lock like others platform?
Why add this new feature but left the most important like format text: bold, italics, etc...

So guys do you need others feature?
I have some ideas like notification when reader comments our novels, when a user add our novel to his library or when they vote, review, etc...

Poche As someone who majors and loves analytics, this new feature in Inkstone is "fun" for me, but not particularly useful as a writer. The only thing that's helpful is maybe when readers read and how many of them are actually reading (minutes, 'actual' reads), but it's not like that would really change anything that a writer does. Uploading at a better time when their readers often read doesn't increase stats or help them in any way. And what does actual reads even mean? That WN admits to scrappers adding views, so the true number is the actual reads?

This is looking more and more like Google Analytics except authors are writing stories, not creating a website where retention rate is actually useful. (Losing or gaining retention is just a yippie or boo to an author I would think. Unless the author tries to change the book after gaining a boost or loss in this statistic? I don't agree with that idea; not to mention, you'll have to constantly monitor stats every single day and chapter and that still might not be accurate pointing what affected what....)

Anyway, in short: Don't need it. Not useful. I want FORMATTING.

I would kowtow to WN if they just give us basic formatting options.

Instead, they saddled us with all this useless crap.

All the more, it's demoralizing to the author.

Hai.... I hadn't logged on to the website for the past one week....was updating the chapters from my phone....but I was reading about this whole overhaul of the inkstone platform so I thought, yeah, why not check it out?

Let me tell you...all those declining/plateau graphs did a number on me and now am here on the forum venting my feelings instead of working on my story

Right it looks cool and very interesting but in the end it's not very useful in actual writing and functions. I can't deny I was impressed at first but then what? After the first 5 minutes of looking at your scores and demos, what can you use as an author to improve yourself? What can I practically use in my writing process?

I'd much prefer a better working ink stone with formatting, options and a better auto-save option.

Thank you but this is the equivalent of getting a new paint job and window decal when I just asked for my car to be fixed.

Chryiss CCmei
You aren't understanding the reason for these analytics.

Knowing how a chapter does (based on subscriptions) gives feedback to the author that they are doing a good job writing said plot that led to it. They can also learn from chapters that show a downtrend, that what they are doing isn't favorable. This can both improve their present book and also improve them for their next book.

If retention rates are low, it means what the author has been writing is not interesting enough to retain the readers. That's useful information.

There are nonvalid readers because some of them might just click in, see the first line and show zero interest. Those aren't counted as valid readers (need to read at least 60 seconds)

CKtalon sorry, I'm going to be honest on how I see it. I feel these stats are great if you have the numbers and data to trend.

A lot of books may not have that, especially those with low views or stating out. It's not that beneficial at this point. So, I only seeing this work for a minority who already have the data to make the wireframes on this dashboard meaningful. For the rest, it's nice pretty space tech stuff.

Maybe if those that have quantifiable data for this dashboard can have it, everyone else has the original version.

I appreciate what you're doing, but I trying to understand the wholestic benefits.

Veronica8 There's no feature that can satisfy everyone. And obviously, those who have the data to help them are already writing quite frequently, and this helps them even further. For the rest, they will just need to write more to gain more experience and actually have the statistics help them. But that doesn't mean that these people should drag down those who can benefit from it.

Oh don't get us wrong, we do see the analytics use and potential. It's a very nice sealing paint job. The work on it is great, very detailed, and I'm sure it will protect my 'car' and be as useful as it's intended. I'm not saying it's a bad or useless feature. Thank you for giving us an update.

I and various other authors are just saying how we would like to have a better smoother running engine with all the necessary driving gears (formatting, writing functions, mobile improvements etc). Those things are more of a priority in our minds. Maybe some reliable working airbags too. (auto save!)

CKtalon I'm not dragging down, but trying to understand the benefits. Book writing is more than quantifiable data. If these books were business manuals, I'd get it.

I do appreciate what this intends to achieve, but I think for most original writers, and especially newbies, I don't think showing weakness and strengths in numbers will tell them a lot.

The original version was enough Stat in this respect.

Also there is a psychological impact to consider when such detailed stats enter the picture of creative writing.

Maybe if this was beta tested with a pilot group who shared results and impressions first on forums may have helped the reception better.

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.

Veronica8

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.

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.