Reduction of spirit stones on webnovel
Cantiara Sure, creating an online publishing platform like this one doesn't cost money :) Hiring UX designers to design the site/app, hiring software engineers that build the system/app, paying for the servers and database systems so the site and app keep on running, paying for online advertisement, hiring content editors. Yep, of course, all of those stuff are free, hence it doesn't cost anything to deliver a web novel to a user. ¯(ツ)/¯
You're mistaking initial investment with running funds. When you start a business, rent an office, hire staff you don't put all those expenses directly in the product price.
Exinaus First thing - this discussion is about reduction of the amount of ss. Maybe you should stand from your PC or whatever you use to write this joke of an logic, take a long walk, start hitting yourself with the stone while shouting "Abawaruwa, nakadarupa, uparama badarapa" while kneeling and trying to dig up the earth from the asphalt. Maybe this will allow people to finally realise that there is something wrong with you and grant you some required help.
Outside of that, if that part of my post didn't apply to you, why do you bother to reply to that? Or are you as entilted to think that everyone here is unimportant and if someone speaks about the topic, they have to have your sorry self in mind? That's the adult world you are pretending to live in?
Exinaus Go fck yourself. That's the first thing.
Adult. World. Muh.
Exinaus Second - I don't have to do anything to have an opinion on writing. That's the adult world you were speaking about, welcome.
To have an opinion? Yep, you are right. But to state it outright and don't be taken as a plain idiot? Then sadly the answer turns around. If you are a IT expert and you speak about ancient history without any prior expertise in it, your degree in IT won't matter, because it's not applying to the topic. You need to get into someone else shoes to properly understand them. That's why I told you to try writing as much, but looking at your reaction and reasoning, you didn't even realise another layer of sarcasm that only proves how little you know about writing and how worthless your opinion is thanks to this.
Exinaus It's an easy job, and if you want to argue about it, do you wanna swap with me?
There is simply no logic in what you wrote. Imagine this scenario. There are two people, one needs to literally help paralysed people defectate, other one needs to clean the severs while the last one control the entire nuclear plant. Is any from them entilted to call his job hardest? No. What others do doesn't affect other jobs at all, hence your sentence has absolutelly 0 logical sense.
Exinaus It's an easy job
As proven earlier, you have no clue about writing, so your judgment brings absolutelly no value.
Exinaus If you can survive a shift at my job, we will speak later. I'm a surgeon btw.
Survive? Sure. I would just sit on the shift and sip on the coffee, because thats all I could do with my medical knowledge. Let me put this in other terms then. Wanna change shifts with me? Huge network admin. You won't fix a single error within the given timeframe, and you owe your company around 50k$. Do you think you would survive that?
Yes, this job of mine is as real as your surgeon job and I can easily judge it from the way of elaboration in your post that proves that you don't have any academic background.Exinaus Or putting a plaster over a paper cut is the biggest thing you can do?
WHile we all know it's nothing but another fictional story that you brough up to try to make your words seem a bit less bullshitty than they are, even if you in reality were this surgeon... What does medicinal ability have to do with writing? This topic is about writing, not your ability to help others heal their injuries.
Exinaus Oh, don't worry, no one will let you do anything, I'm joking.
Your joke is soo funny that I actually missed the point where I was suposed to be laughting.
Exinaus You know there lives at stakes in my job,
WHO. THE. FUK. CARES?
Exinaus compared to your 4 hours writing a 20k words EVERY. DAY. OMG.
We never spoke about stakes, yet again you bring up irrelevant sht only to avoid your lapses in logic.
Exinaus You don't want my money as a reader? Great, tell me which novels you write here, i will make sure to never look at them.
First thing first, I doubt you ever paid a single penny out of your own pocket (stealing credit card from your mum does not count). And trust me, I don't want such entitled pricks as you as my readers, despite how thrashy my story is. Spare me the dignity and keep as far away from them as its possible.
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Exinaus You know, the problem with your comparisons and your high and mighty attitude is that you seem to think that people should not be earning a wage because...I don't know, they are just writing.
You didn't mention anything about Spirit Stones? Certainly. Then why did you jump into my conversation with Threetimess and start ranting about miners, oil rig workers and roofers? I was arguing that writers should get paid (and guess what, we get paid in the form of Spirit Stones) because they put in hours of work, just like any other profession. Sure, miners, oil rig workers and roofers, and your surgeon jobs are infinitely tougher and more difficult and demanding. No one is saying that writers have it harder than them, and should earn more than them. Absolutely no one. You're the one who barged into my conversation with Threetimess and other readers who were arguing that we writers should not be paid, and now you're backtracking and saying you made no mention of spirit stones?
Then why did you even jump into the conversation in the first place?!
By the way, how much do roofers earn? How much do oil rig workers earn? Miners? Surgeons like you? I believe roofers earn $18 an hour? Oil rig workers earn up to several thousand, anywhere between $5,000 to over $10,000 for management, per month. Miners? Um...$28 an hour? Surgeons like you? I'm guessing between $8,000 and $10,000 a month, maybe more depending on seniority or other positions (chief surgeon, etc.)?
How much do writers earn? 2 cents for 200 words. Let's say they write 2,000 words in 2 hours, and I'm being generous here. That's like 20 cents for two hours, or 10 cents an hour. Say they work, maybe 6 hours a day, calculate that to $18 a month.
But now you have readers and other posters (I don't know about you, but you're the one jumping in when I was arguing with them) claiming that that's too high and unaffordable. That writers should earn even less than that, all because they want to spend less spirit stones on their stories.
Do I care how much other people earn? Not really. Miners definitely have a much harder time. They deserve to earn more. No complaints there. So it stupefies me when you make irrelevant comparisons to justify...I don't know, that writers shouldn't earn anything from their "easy" job of writing.
If that's not what you're saying, then why jump into the conversation at all?
Oh, I know. You're a surgeon, right? Imagine if some patient whines to you for not doing your job properly (I don't know, you messed up a surgery or something, left a scar, or whatever). And then he says something along the lines of, "how hard can being a surgeon be? All you need to do is pick up a knife and cut people up. Why am I paying so much for this botched operation?" Or "All you need to do is cut out the tumor with a knife or laser. What's so difficult about that?!"
Are you going to tell me you're not going to be livid? Yeah, I know, you're probably going to be professional and all, and apologize, but I know for sure that you'll be inwardly thinking to yourself, "ARE YOU FUCKING ME?! YOU THINK SURGERY IS EASY?! WHY DON'T YOU TRY AND BECOME A SURGEON YOURSELF, HUH?! If you aren't happy with my surgery, I can let you die/you can go find another surgeon!" Or maybe you'll just scoff at the guy in a condescending manner, "idiot isn't worth my time, I don't care what you think." Or something similar.
If you claim that you don't think that, and think it's natural for people to think surgery is easy, then I'm pretty sure you're lying through your teeth. And I don't need a medical degree or a degree in psychology for that. In fact, you just hypocritically attacked MotivatedSloth. People's lives are at stake? Survive a shift at your job? See? The moment people insinuate that you don't put in effort or time into your work, that you shouldn't be paid your current wage for it, you get bloody defensive as well. Aha! So what right do you have to call me out on the whole "if you think being a writer is easy, try being one yourself!"?
Holy f, you just showed how truly hypocritical you are. Welcome to the world of adults, indeed.
By the way, how much do you earn from being a surgeon? Probably a thousand times the amount Webnovel amateurs earn from being a writer, that's for sure. But yeah, let's make the comparison and then wave your big d about how much more difficult your job is, and how many lives are at stake. As if you earning a thousand times more isn't enough to make up for the level of difficulty and responsibility. Why are you speaking as if you're assuming that we all earn the same amount?
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Exinaus you don't put all those expenses directly in the product price.
Uh, yes you can. Depends on what your pricing strategy is, but a strategy that is used to get back your initial investment is called price skimming.
And since when are the costs of server/database systems, as well as software engineers and UX designers, considered initial investment? You think once the site/app is built they stop working for WN? You may be a surgeon, but do you know anything about software egineering?
I haven't read any of the said above as I am too lazy. All I got was the gist of people complaining about how spirit stones have been decreased from their whatever rewards.
This is one thing you people don't understand. Nothing comes free in life, you should especially know this if you are an adult. (I mean unless your great-grandpa came into your room and secretly gave you money wishing you the best)
Being an "AUTHOR" is a job. We expect to get "PAID" for our job. It's not like whoop di doo I shall spend 90% of my life typing a story for $0 just because I want to. (Though some actually do that. What nice guys)
And did you all know, USING A PIRATED SITE IS BREAKING A FEDERAL LAW. Excluding all that, back to the free ss problem you all have.
Non-contracted novels are all free. So your SS there is useless.
As for novels that require SS.
Translated Novels: If you think translating is easy, you might as well go learn an entire language and start translating. Making sure you learn all about the different tenses and meaning that language has. I mean, some of you might be able to. However, being a translator is also a job. So they expect to be "PAID" for it as well.
FREE SS does not give anyone $$$. So you are not paying us if you do not buy SS and read novel chapters with it. If we all die due to getting $0 because of you all reading off pirated sites, or trying to wreck webnovel by asking for more SS. You're all greedy pigs. (Not directed at any of you, as I said before I have not read anything above)
And novels on pirated sites come from the site that typed it themselves! So they are the exact same! There is no, "Pirated has better translations" or "oh gee, this pirated site is clearly better." THEY COPY THE STORY EXACTLY.
I honestly forgot what I was going to say, so I'll just end it here. Oh wait before I do go, stop being such pricks about asking for more free ss. Surely you'd hate to see your hard work only become a usable object and thrown away once done.
Sincerely, Your Truly
~Rianolinon The Loli TeaRianolinon pats head
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Rianolinon
I think you point the real problem:
Rianolinon FREE SS does not give anyone $$$
The promotion of the company wouldn't be done on the back of translators and authors . If the company decides to distribute free ss, this isn't the responsibility of content providers.
ps: "on the back of", I don't know if this idiom exists in English...
Exinaus I'm sorry. I'm a bit sensitive to phrases like "why don't try it yourself?". I think that's the lamest defensive excuse that can be made, ever. I fell the need to stand against anyone who uses it. That's maybe my bad trait, but I'm not that eager to correct it, because I think I'm not wrong on it.
As Tomoyuki rightfully pointed out while I couldn't be bothered to find this before.
:3 Do you know how this kind of behaviour is called? It's hypocrisy.
Cantiara Ah, posted before saw this. It's not about being smarter here. I just have so much fun trashing jerks like him xD
Like, in real-world they would either spit at you or try to make things violent and what's the fun in beating someone up? It's better to destroy them with just words.
MotivatedSloth You sell story. The whole idea behind selling the books is about selling a medium that is used to tell the story. The only difrence lays in form.
Yes, you are right. But this difference cannot be ignored and can be quite substantial. You know, if you need to move from point A to point B, you can just walk, or take a bus, or a taxi. Prices are different.
Webnovel and website - bus.
Hard book - taxi.
Pirating - walking.
Ofc i can fuss a little that for a bus service I were charged like I used a taxi.
MotivatedSloth If I make my story suddenly filled with fillers, without any plot progression, drop the quality or anything, my income will drop as well because people will simply stop reading it.
I actually agree with you, it's just some small details that bother me. You can make a filler chapter here or there (or let's just assume every 20 chapters or less, or more, the number is not important and depends only on author guts of how often he dares to pull it off), or insert a few filler paragraphs every chapter. Few readers will grumble, but they will not leave. But if you decide to put all of it in a hard book, and a good editor will throw it out, you might find yourself lacking content for a book. I saw those things happen. For example, "TheGam3". I read web novel edition, and then bought hard copy ... so much stuff was rewritten and thrown away.
A lot like this. Hundreds of examples that i read myself (not just heard somewhere). I just can't see webnovel like anormal book. So many examples tells me that it's not possible.
ludo2776 A novel on this site is not an elaborate draft. If you were to compare the ages of the authors on this site compared to college graduates with an english degree in writing, you'd think so. However, most authors on webnovel are under 30. The ones in the top 50 are literally in their college years or just out.
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Exinaus By your analogy, pirating is not walking.
Pirating is you hijacking the fare machine of a Metrotransit bus or light rail and taking the fares from other people while the train and bus drivers who are doing all the work of ferrying people to their destinations aren't getting any money in return for their labor. While you do, all because you hijacked the fare machine.
That's what piracy is. I know it's probably hard for you to understand, because you're a surgeon, but you probably should read up in intellectual property, copyright and DCMA before coming in here and pretending to know what you're talking about.
No one is denying that the quality of webnovels are low and some of them are outright atrocious. Guess what? You don't have to pay for them. You get to read like dozens of free chapters, and if you decide that they are bad, then don't pay to unlock the premium chapters! If you think they are worth it, then pay for them. Why are you demanding that writers write for free or should have their already low wages reduced further? It's not like you're purchasing an entire book from a bookstore - one of the advantages of Webnovel is that you already have access to a decent sample of the book you're reading before you decide whether it's worth purchasing the remaining chapters. You can't say you haven't been warned, or that you never expected them to be bad when you've already read a hundred free chapters prior to the locked ones.
And also, the amount of money you spend on a webnovel (what, $6 for 30 chapters?) is worlds apart from spending thousands on a single surgery, so I don't know why you insist on comparing writing to other jobs. Like, really? We already earn much less than you do, so why are you always mocking us, as if to say we should not be paid for writing?
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Tomoyuki And also, the amount of money you spend on a webnovel (what, $6 for 30 chapters?)
500 SS = $10.
While a single chapter (at least in novels that i'm reading) costs 14-18 SS. So it's $10 for ~31 chapters.
And how many chapters does your novel have? How many are you planning it to have?
From what i saw (for a properly finished, not dropped novels) it's at least 1200-1400. Minus first 100, or 150 which is free. It's ~$400 for a story.
Just like you said before, hard book costs $15-20.
Do you want to tell me that your story will be like 20-25 real books? Or correct me if i'm wrong with the math.
And let's mention some of huge books with 2000+ chapters, anyone wants to calculate costs?
Right. Seems rather reasonable?
I will give here a few words here as a reader and writer.
as a reader it's normal for wn to make changes it's not the first time that this happens (I can tell 2 similar things) and after 'sh*t storm' it will be normal and we will be hoping for the old days to come back but they won't. And most important I been dropping a lot of novels for a long time when they become premium did I miss them, yes but I go further and slowly forgetting what was there
as a writer, I'm publishing here for a long time (for me) DAYLI(most of the time it was for FREE but still I been uploading it and I don't remember when I had free day without writing/publishing something here and I don't keep with time which I write but still I'm uploading 2 chapters or I'm trying to do this) and I been contracted a not long time ago and from writing from 1-2h a day (still bad but I'm trying to improve this) go to around 4h or more depend of a day and now seeing that I'm exhausted from doing it but I still writing (with almost no response from my readers comments from last month I can count on one hand) and when someone tells me that its easy job should try to write 2k-3k words a day for 3 months (for free - and deal with critic which sometimes show up) and not be exhausted then congratulation its job for U
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I don't understand the link between the age or schoolary degree of writers and the draft-like quality of what they product.
I know what it is to write a novel (not in English, it's not my language, not in this format neither) but my English is enough to judge the quality I could reach in what amount of time if I did it in my mother language. When I write 400 words, my first writing is low quality, I spend around half an hour to an hour. Then, I read it, and write it again, increasing the quality, adding lacking details, working on sentences syntax, checking the exact definition of words, choosing the most appropriate, deleting unnecessary parts, doing some research etc, for 400 words (this amount is convenient because it's more or less one page on word, as i set it), I will spend around 2 hours. A chapter of my novel is between 10,000 and 20,000 words, so i need some days on each parts of the work. The quality after that part is not inferior compared to what you find on webnovel (here is what I call a draft). When the chapter is finished, I give it to some friends who read it critically and I adjust again a large amount of my previous work. At this moment, I need around half an hour to an hour on those 400 words. I'm not a genius in literacy so many people write way faster than I do. But if I count the time I spend for 2000 words (close to the length off a chapter here), it's approximately 15 hours. I'm slow but not bad, even so, this is what i call an elaborate draft, far from the quality expected in a published book, after professionals look at it and another round of hard work. If the quality isn't draft to elaborate draft after spending just 4 hours on 2000 words, how do you people work so fast or avoid so many steps of creating a good quality work?
All in all, the prices on this site are a bit expensive regarding the general quality.
Time to go to sleep, I think people don't talk about the original subject of this thread, me the first.