Webnovel.Forum

HeavenShatterer What in the bloody...

You know, every Saturday, I would go to my local gaming store. Sometimes, I would treat the kids there to drinks or food. I would buy them maybe a can of soda, a box of sushi, or a bunch of wings.

But when one weekend I don't have money, and I don't treat them for a week, or maybe a month, not a single one of them come up to me and demand, "where's my free soda/food?" Unlike you or the many people here, they don't take me for granted. They are not entitled. They know that just because I treat them frequently, that doesn't mean they can take advantage of me.

That's a much better analogy than yours about breathing. You don't need spirit stones to live. You don't need to read on this site. You have other sources of entertainment. Nobody is pointing a gun at your head and forcing you to buy coins or spirit stones. You will not die just because you can't read your favorite novel on the site. The worst that happens is that you move on and drop it. Maybe find a new site (Royal Road? Wattpad? Fictionpress?). Breathing? People die if they don't breathe, of course the government can't charge people for breathing. Not unless they want a riot on their hands. You are not going to die just because you can't read a webnovel for free. Jesus Christ...

And...gives some power to the free users to this site. Why do you think you are entitled to have power on a site that you don't spend money on? No, seriously? Do the kids I treat every weekend think they are entitled to have some form of power over me just because I buy them drinks and food? What sort of bs logic is that? Bloody hell, you have the option to not spend money and continue reading stuff for free and you complain about having to wait. All because you don't have enough stockpiled coins or free passes to read 10 chapters (mass release) in a row - that you are reading for free. Oh, God...are you even thinking before you type?

Tomoyuki

Tomoyuki That's a much better analogy than yours about breathing. You don't need spirit stones to live. You don't need to read on this site. You have other sources of entertainment. Nobody is pointing a gun at your head and forcing you to buy coins or spirit stones. You will not die just because you can't read your favorite novel on the site. The worst that happens is that you move on and drop it. Breathing? People die if they don't breathe,

Exactly, it is analogy not literally and nobody said anything about not being able to read the favorite story, if it is any good then u can find it anyway on the internet.

Tomoyuki And...gives some power to the free users to this site. Why do you think you are entitled to have power on a site that you don't spend money on? No, seriously?

Believe me, when I say Quidian is getting money from the "free" users, notice the quote marks?
They had added adds which you could watch to see chapters, they get money from clicks views, etc...
and a small part of "free" users eventually become premium users or whatever Quidian tells them they are.

Your post is almost like a padding post, atenuating the most negative reactions to the new "Marketing strategies" Quidian does.

Tomoyuki believe me, I understand your frustration. I personally rely on some of these free bonuses to read and unlock chapters.

and then sayng things like = it could be good or bad, idk, but it is not so bad we still get free chapters etc...

HeavenShatterer So why the hell are you behaving so entitled and thinking that you deserve free stuff for giving nothing in return?

Ads...really?

@Cantiara CKtalon Ads do not generate 5 SS worth of revenue. They generate about 0.25-0.5 SS each. Before Premium was introduced, it was using ads for revenue, and it was sorely insufficient to pay authors, translators, editors, and the publisher.

And here's what I posted before about how ads per click works:

Cantiara I wasn't around when they first introduced premium chapters, so I can't say much about their reasoning behind it. And I didn't mean to barge in your convo, but I couldn't help but say something when I read the part of your post about WN renegotiating with advertisers because they should be paid more for those ads. Yeah, sorry, I could be meddlesome like that.

Well, the thing is, what you wrote, it doesn't work like that. WN, in this case, is just one of the many host partners of Google Adsense service. How it works is basically, advertisers pay Google to run ads on the Adsense network, then WN applied to become a part of that network (which is not a simple thing, you need to be eligible and approved by Google first), and then once they became a part of Google Adsense network, they get an ad code from Google and place it on their site/app. Then Google pays WN when those ads appear on their site/app.

So WN can't renegotiate with those advertisers directly, there were never any initial negotiations with them, to begin with. And no, they can't negotiate with Google either, because, well, I'm not gonna call Google a tyrant, because tyrant is a strong word, and we all do benefit from a lot of things that Google gives us, but they are one of the biggest players in the tech world, and so, if you're using their service, instead of negotiating with Google, you'll have to conform with their standards instead.

As far as I know, if you're a host partner, how much revenue generated by these ads depends on two things. Per Click and Per Action. Per Click is the most common type, WN gets paid every time we, readers, click and view the ads they're showing on their site/app. But this doesn't really generate a significant amount of money. The other type, Per Action is the one that generates more money. WN gets paid when we actually perform an action after viewing those videos, like downloading those games advertised in the multiplier videos, etc, because the action provides a direct benefit to the advertiser. But not many people do that if any at all. Well, I, at least, don't.

So, just like CKtalon said, and he must have calculated those numbers or gotten the data from a reliable source, the ads don't generate sufficient revenues to pay the content contributors here. I think the premium chapters would generate enough income if the ratio of paying readers is greater to non-paying readers, and I'm assuming it isn't. That's why they introduced Privilege to give their content contributors more incentives to do their work well.

So, the revenue that WN gets from a user clicking an advertisement and watching it is much much less than the cost of a chapter, which is how much on average? 4-7 SS/Coins? Even giving out 2 SS/Coins per ads per user still doesn't give them any profit. This is why they are trying to get more people to purchase SS/Coins, which is logical, isn't it? After all, they're a company, not a non-profit organization, nor a charity.

Go ask Cantiara or CKtalon for more details regarding the pitiful amount they get from ads.

HeavenShatterer We still get free chapters, so...what exactly are you whining about now?

You say my post attentuates the most negative reactions. Dude, I'm just explaining how the new stuff works, and telling people how to use it and to try it out before you start whining. Because most people whine instead of actually finding out how the new system work. Like you, for example.

And your post is among the most self-important, entitled and arrogant posts I've ever read.

Oh, we free users help you generate revenue because of ads! So we are entitled to have power over you! Even though we don't pay a single cent!

How dare you take away free stuff!? I don't want to wait to read my mass releases even though I'm reading them for free! Not because you can't read them for free. Not because you're forced to buy the chapters. You're complaining because you have to wait a couple of days to catch up on mass releases if you want the option of not paying.

...right.

Tomoyuki

Tomoyuki So why the hell are you behaving so entitled and thinking that you deserve free stuff for giving nothing in return?

It was free and they decided to make it a little less free? i already said how it was before spirit stones and that is why i am not reading on Quidian.

Tomoyuki Ads...really?

It gives a small amount of money but by making it a frendlier site for "free" users, more " free" users would browse the site bringing Quidian money from " free" users .

I would rather give another site my 0.25-0.5 SS (it is not an accurate representation as other sites do not have SS, but the equivalent in cents) if Quidian is so money hungry that they need to corner the "free"
users to pay for Light Novels they could find for free.

HeavenShatterer You literally said you have the option to either pay or wait if you want free stuff, and now you are backtracking and claiming that free users are "cornered."

By the way, my friends were treated to free meals when I happen to have some spare cash on me. But now that I'm broke and need to pay taxes and rent, I can't afford to treat them. Are they going to start yelling at me for having "less free" meals? Since when am I obligated to provide them free meals? When Qidian realized that ads and the former business model was not sustainable, what do they do? They change it, obviously. Otherwise what are they supposed to do, suck it up and maintain a business that's losing them money?

And no, no matter how many more "free users" you get to browse the site, you still won't get enough revenue from ads alone to cover the costs. Even Royal Road knows this and they offer premium membership monthly subscription. People overestimate the amount of revenue that ads can bring.

No, the thing is that nobody is forced or cornered to buy coins or the stories here. You don't want to wait? You pay. you want to rely on free stuff? Wait and stockpile enough if there's a mass release, otherwise you get enough per day for your 3 favorite series. In which case why are you worried about the expiry date? No one is forcing you to pay anything or cornering you. I'm not sure why you are making stuff up, but okay.

But sure, go ahead and pirate stories from free sites, and gloat over how you have the moral high ground, how Qidian deserves to be stolen from because it's greedy, while whining about not getting free stuff and benefiting off other people's hard work for free (by the way, if you're pirating stories, you're not stealing from Qidian, you're stealing from the authors, the content creators and the translators).

HeavenShatterer Royal Road =/= Patreon.

Royal Road does not pay writers or translators. You want money, you set up your own Patreon. I think you are getting confused over something. Writers who get 10k per month from Patreon don't necessarily post on Royal Road. Most writers on Royal Road write for free. And most writers on Royal Road update weekly, or once every 3-4 days, instead of everyday in Webnovel. I ought to know, I was from there.

Most importantly, Royal Road is NOT a case where everybody profits. Unless you have a Patreon - and not all Royal Road writers do - you don't profit. Similarly, not all stories on Webnovel are under contract. So, just like Royal Road, you get to read them for free.

Also, most successful writers on Royal Road go publish their novels on Amazon. And guess what? They remove their stories from the site because...Amazon rules.

You are confusing Royal Road with Patreon and maybe Amazon. I like Royal Road, even though a good number of people hounded me out and forced me to delete my stories there, but it's a completely different model from Webnovel. I only raised it as an example to show you that solely relying on ads for revenue is not sustainable.

HeavenShatterer
Its very simple when you spend alot of time doing alot of work are you expecting to get paid?
If you clean the streets for 4 hours do you get paid?
If you write an Original Novel for 4 hours do you get paid?
If you start complaing about free currency which you use to unlock things people spend hours doing then just leave most of us Authors don't spend hours looking to see people complain that the free chapters in locked/contracted books aren't enough. Especially when you get to unlock them forever after you unlock a book.
You need to understand what the word "FREE" means and what being paid for your hardwork means as well
P.S sorry fanfic authors...(I'm one of you)