Webnovel.Forum

So it's a fake? there is even a preview contract there.

lunate I can't speak for him, but I had two main reasons for going premium.

First, there's the number of readers it gets you. Webnovel gives premium novels a decent bit of promotion, so you get to show your work to thousands of people.

That's something even traditional publishers don't offer to new authors. And if you plan to continue writing, having thousands of readers is no small thing.

And second, there's the money. It won't make you rich (even waiting tables or flipping burgers would probably pay better, truth be told), but it's nice to be rewarded for your efforts. And most self-published authors on platforms like Amazon still earn far less.

As for the contract, it honestly isn't too bad.

While Webnovel take care in protecting their interests, it certainly isn't any worse than what you'd get from a traditional publisher. If anything, the percentage of earnings that goes your way is significantly(!) higher, and the performance requirements are much less stringent.

To give you an idea of what contracts are like in traditional publishing:

Mark Lawrence has blogged about how he only makes 2.25% of the earnings of his books in the UK. 2.25%. That's £0.12 on a £7.99 paperback.

Worse, traditional publishing is rife with examples of authors' series being canceled and the publisher refusing to return the rights to the author. So authors end up unable to finish their series, leaving readers without a satisfying ending.

And that's without getting into how publishers these days expect authors to promote their own works.

By comparison, Webnovel is infinitely better. Your works are promoted heavily, there's a large pre-existing audience, you get a bigger part of any earnings, and you won't be blocked from finishing your series if it underperforms.

lunate What he said. Usually an Editor will send you a contract to your e-mail. If you haven't received that, you can use a form. There is a form to submit your novel, and they will consider whether to give you contract or not.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSchNZTTmOK7vz3cOrrtcm0rFKXT6PIgIZ-7CaT6ZonB_leg3w/viewform

This is the form, and you can have a look. As for whether it's worth it or not. I already mentioned somewhere else, that it depends on the individual. Some will find it not acceptable, other might accept it without further thoughts. Whether you should take this or not, should be your choice. The best advice anyone can give you, is to read the contract (when you have it). If you don't understand something, a lawyer is the best option. It's never a good idea signing something you don't understand, right?

Ok, i won't stress on it for the moment then.

TomVanDyke I'd like to point out, Mark Lawrence got a "considerable" advance. Even if his book didn't sell, the money he got in advance, was his. There are more points like that. So although the 2.25% is true, that is not everything he earns or earned thanks to the deals he signed. I read the whole article.

DarkRay But only extremely well-known authors get such advances.

Most authors get far less, and even then, they rarely earn out their advance and start getting royalties.

TomVanDyke I guess it depends on the contract and draft. There are new authors who get good contracts, because their books are just that good and hit the market very well. All authors at some point were not famous.

TomVanDyke But only extremely well-known authors get such advances.

Not correct. A guy called Dave Gorman (a british comedian and such). He wasn't an author, but got a publishing deal. He even told his story how he didn't finish his book, and had to pay all the money he received back to the company (which he spent). That's many years ago, but even Lawrence says:

"...And where did they get the money to gamble in the first place? It came from profits made on successful authors. The very high-selling authors (the successful gambles) subsidize the new authors and allow them to be given a chance."

Hence I say, it's not as bad as you describe. People sign contracts at webnovel, and they sign contracts with publishing companies.

DarkRay There are some extremely rare exceptions, but they make up <0.1% of all books that get published.

The average advance for a debut novel is $5,000-$10,000, and that's before the agent takes his share. If you take into account that getting a book written, edited, and published will generally involve at least a year of work, that's not exactly great.

There's a reason that most well-known fantasy authors still have day jobs.

TomVanDyke I'm just telling you what I can see from the stuff you provided. I have no data at all concerning the other contracts, or what new authors receive. If you have, please share.

LaoTze instead of just pointing out, do something about. You could start with supporting not contracted authors. If you start to affect the number of new contracted authors, then something could change. It’s useless just writing in the forum and pretending changes without acting. It’s a critic for all us readers that aren’t satisfied with the changes

DarkRay Good data are sparse, but here's an example of an author survey for YA books, and here's one for romance.

And according to a survey by the Authors Guild, median earnings for professional authors in the US were a paltry $6,080 in 2017, a 42% drop from 2009.

Yet at the same time, publishers are thriving, with Simon & Schuster announcing last year that they'd had "the most successful year in [their] history".

Now, there are exceptions, of course.

Bestselling authors like Mark Lawrence get solid advances, as do celebrities like Mark Gorman when they're offered a book deal.

But other than that, high advances are extremely rare, especially for new authors.

MotivatedSloth I believe they've now fully transitioned to inkstone. I was talking to Bryce about this.
@lunate You can download a copy, you should see your content editor's contact on it. Communicate with him or her, If you need any clarification.
And @MotivatedSloth was right about the premium aspect.

I got a contract offer 2 days ago which popped up in my 'system notifications'. Judging by what others have said, it seems like WN is notifying contracts in this way.
It had a webnovel link for accepting and form link to reject it (which I did). Also had contact info for WN in case I had questions.
Overall, the email sounded like a cheesy infomercial for a get rich quick scheme.

TomVanDyke I know this is long, but bare with me.

The first link concerns 48 authors, from what I gathered. Quite a small pool of people, but there were some successes. 60% of them were published by Big Five. They got some hefty advances too. Only 3 people got less than $10k, the rest received much more (for the five big companies). The small companies went a bit worse, sure, but then I already said it depends on the draft (market, your ability to sell your story and so on). Some stories will simply not get a good contract. Most if not all people with contract an webnovel, wouldn't receive as much as a reply if they applied to any of those companies. (it took some of them years of writing to make a debut book). I'll also say that earning $10-20k on webnovel is not easy.

"50% of published young adult authors made less than $10,000 last year. Only the top 11% made $50,000 or more." <- this is a bit misleading. Looking at the chart, I can also say that almost 50% made more than $10k.

Also: "What helps increase and authors annual income?
Having an agent! The average income for a published young adult author with an agent was $31,000. The average income for one without was $5,000."

It goes into word count and so on, but there is not enough space for me to write about everything :D That article is quite long. I encourage people to check those statistics. They can be interesting, as long as you remember the small pool of authors.

The other link is for period of 2005-2010, a bit old, but worth a look. Most of them are 10k and over (for the earn-out). As for the average advance, it would be in range as you said probably (considering all publishing houses of course). Those that offered less money or no money at all, were the small publishing companies. I assume it's easier to get into a smaller company, than a large publishing. Again, not bad pay-outs depending on the company.

The 3rd link:
"Median incomes of all published authors who were surveyed—including part-time, full-time, traditionally published, self-published, and hybrid-published authors—for all writing-related activities[1] was $6,080, down 3% from four years ago. This is down from a $10,500 median income in 2009 according the Authors Guild’s last survey[2]. Worse still, the median income for all published authors based solely on book-related activities[3] fell from $3,900 to $3,100, down 21%, while full-time traditionally published authors earned $12,400."

Just to clarify, they are talking about median, not average. Here is what median is:
The "middle" of a sorted list of numbers. To find the Median, place the numbers in value order and find the middle number. Example: find the Median of {13, 23, 11, 16, 15, 10, 26}. Put them in order: {10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 23, 26} The middle number is 15, so the median is 15. <- the average of that set is 16.28.

If you click the link in the article, they give you more stats. Here's the link:
https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/six-takeaways-from-the-authors-guild-2018-authors-income-survey/

Here is another thing:
"Median income for full-time authors for all writing-related activities, however, was $20,300 in 2017, up 3% from 2013. Note, however, that is still considerably lower than the $25,000 median income full-time authors earned in 2009."

There is also this:
"Among the authors surveyed who ranked in the top decile for author-related earnings, self-published authors earned 50% less with a median of $154,000 compared to traditionally published authors in the top decile who earned a median of $305,000. " <- I know this concerns the top, but just shows the gap between people (like me) who publish by themselves, and those with a publishing house. I should also mention that Romance was really big with self published authors (I wonder why :D Looks at webnovel). You can read in full, with the link I provided.

Of course I don't have any data from webnovel, they don't provide it. But look at an average contracted novel, and tell me they can reach those numbers on average (i.e. at least $5k for their novel with a specific word count in a year). Getting a contract from large or small publishing companies, is not easy. XD That is why I publish here. It's a nightmare to get into any company. The drafts you have to produce, the quality checks and so on. At the same time, it is much more rewarding. If I were to chose between webnovel, and a publishing company, I'd go for publishing company.

By all means, it depends how you look at everything. The % you get for your book is also dependant on advance (2nd link). The smaller the advance, the larger share you get. (For example: Webnovel gives you no advance, and you have 50% of the net income). The companies that provided no advance, give you from 35% to 70% of the net income. Which is comparable to webnovel's rate.

By the way, its Dave Gorman (he was a celebrity back then... but not a super known guy. It was something like year 2000? that googlewhack adventure boosted his fame) But it is true, he wrote some stuff for a show I believe, so perhaps not the best example on my part. Mark Gorman is a plastic surgeon :D because I thought you refer to another guy and checked it out.

You were also sort of right about authors struggling with money (i.e. needing another job for a living).
"More book authors, even those who consider themselves full-time writers, are forced to hold down multiple jobs to earn enough money to survive. This includes authors who have written books for decades and have survived on their writing in the past." (the link I provided, 4th topic). This is concerning literary authors. I wouldn't say "well-known" fantasy authors struggle, and need to find another job. Newbie authors, I would agree.

All in all, they are not ripping you off that much, or at all. They invest in you (if they give advances), and if that investment pays out, you become more known and gain access to better price ranges. Most authors get some sort of advances though, this is evident with the links you provided. Whether you make it or not, it's up to you really, and some luck. Anyway, that is enough. You can tell me what you think, or not. Up to you. Thanks for reading.

Cantiara
First, I would like to congratulate on your recovery! Second, I appreciate your concern. Thank you, it sounds as if you know me personally.

Finally, I agree with you I definitely need to pull myself out of these novels and spend some time in the real world outside of work but at the same time I've literally lost all interest in doing other things. So I find myself disengaged and have to force myself to participate in outside things. I guess thats a part of being an adult. (Constantly, being forced to do things you really don't want to do. Lol)

S.n I believe I would have been a hermit in another life.

Cantiara
First, I would like to congratulate on your recovery! Second, I appreciate your concern. Thank you, it sounds as if you know me personally.

Finally, I agree with you I definitely need to pull myself out of these novels and spend some time in the real world outside of work but at the same time I've literally lost all interest in doing other things. So I find myself disengaged and have to force myself to participate in outside things. I guess thats a part of being an adult. (Constantly, being forced to do things you really don't want to do. Lol)

S.n I believe I would have been a hermit in another life.

DarkRay yeah I wish we know more about contracts or earnings, not much detail is given