Heavens_Edge
3 pages a month for ~30euro?

Average page has 250 words.
Average month has 30 days
3x30x250 = 2 250 words
cost of 200 words - 1ss
2 250/200 = 11.25 = the amount of SS you need to read 90 average pages.

What if you meant chapters?
average chapter is about 1.5k words
1.5k330 = 135k (1-1.5 of average book lenght, so considering you used 12euro as novel price, its worth in normal novel would be 12-18euro, and I don't care about quality, you can pick the books that are worth paying)
135k words / 200 = 675ss.

So, if you want to read 3 pages/day during an entire month, you would need to pay from 0.12$ (with +100% bonus ss) to 0.24$(without any bonus during topup)

If you want to read 3 chapters/day a month, you would need to pay 6.75$ (dollars, not euro) PER MONTH with 100% bonus SS or 13.5$ without any bonus.

Now, you said about tensei slime being 12 euro for single book. Just checked, first vol has 56k words and second 72k words, so on average, its 64k words for single volume worth of words. That means 1$ can give you about 4 812 words, where on wn it gives from 10 000 to 20 000 words for the same 1$.

Do your math before spewing lies.

Oh, and I would forget! With free passes, you get around 7-14$ worth of free reading on this site, so don't tell me you should get even more.

      I'm just going to put it out there to support authors of free novels like mine who could care less about contracting and would rather keep their heads out of this mess than earn a bit of chump change. Thank you and Happy Holidays, everyone.

        MotivatedSloth Leave the math/number aside, do you not understand that a physical copy of a book has more worth than the stuff on WN? You know what are books made out of? ohyeah paper and ink, which adds costs, handling fees and then u have the material value which means there is a possibility to resell it as second hand goods.

        So overall why don’t you even take a min to think about why the physical has a higher costs than digital.

            Zhinoy

            I get where you're coming from, but it also costs digital platforms like webnovels a lot of money to keep its systems running so it would be available to their customers 24/7.

            Forget about the content contributors' fees, but think about the servers costs, and if they're on cloud then they'll have to pay cloud providers, like google or amazon, and it costs a lot of money. Also paying their software engineers, database engineers, UX designers, etc. That also cost a lot of money. So even if a web novel is not materialized in a tangible thing, it still costs money to deliver them to the customers.

            PS. Why is this thread still running? SMH...

                Cantiara Well i was comparing physical copy vs digital copy, and you took a step further. I was also referring to Sloth saying it’s cheaper to read on WN than buying the actual thing, again number bashing people without thinking of any other reasons why it might cost that much. Of course maintenance on any platform costs money, but i am pretty sure WN is doing just fine. (~looks at all the people getting the xmas badge)

                PS. running a server might not cost that much as you think.

                    Zhinoy

                    Ok, my bad, I thought Sloth compared the two because the poster he replied to started the comparison.

                        Zhinoy
                        It's obvoius that paperback will be more expensive because of all the cost of printing (distribution is covered by standard Amazon Fee I presume, but I might be wrong here)

                        And I wasn't trying to prove that the pricing is the same, just pointed out that crying out loud that paperback/amazon online books are WAY cheaper is simply wrong.

                        Heavens_Edge Nobody should be willing to pay ~€30,- to read three pages a day for one month

                        Thats the part I replied to.

                              MotivatedSloth
                              Before you accuse someone for spewing lies you should make correct comparisons and with equal statistical value.
                              First of all, you forget to include the 1000ss for access to premium chapters which kicks up the price, following your calculation, from €13,12 to €34,12.
                              I read reincarnation of the strongest sword god which costs around 9-10ss which is more than you ‘average’ chapter costs of 7.5ss. Thus the correct price I should pay is 3 x 30 x 9.5 / 1000 x €21 + €21 = ~ €39,- PER MONTH

                              Furthermore, if you think you are being smart by comparing physical books to webnovels then there are also kindle editions of light novels (digital versions) for only €6,- with the same amount of words.
                              Thus, using you analogy, I can:
                              - pay webnovel €1 for ~4400 words
                              - buy a kindle lighnovel €1 for ~10.600 words

                              Even IF someone buys gold/ss for ‘50% off’, which is a misleading marketing trick and is even illegal in the EU, nevertheless, webnovel still charges more per word than a kindle light novel. Furthermore, as you said it, the quality of webnovels are (much) lower.

                              EDIT:
                              And one more thing people can not buy ~1850SS then must pay 2000ss which equivalents €42,- PER MONTH... and yes, after you spent €504,- for one year for a single webnovel, then the 13th month is for free. Congratulations!

                                  Heavens_Edge

                                  I'm not going into numbers, and I used to think the same way about WN being so expensive compared to buying digital books on Kindle. But then I stumbled upon a comment by @CrispyCritter back in August, which made me realize that comparing a web novel and a kindle editions of light novels, as well as physical books, is like comparing an apple and a pear. It's not only for you, but also for Sloth, or anyone else that is trying to compare these two types of entertainment. They're not the same, no use in setting the two side by side.

                                  CrispyCritter When I pay money to webnovel, I personally am not paying for a finished product, like I get on Kindle; I am paying for a product to be finished. I see something I like and I want to see it continue, both for me and for others. So I reward both the author/translator and the mechanism (webnovel) that allows me to find such work by buying SS, and if I really like it, by buying Privilege.

                                  So, there are people that are willing to pay for this type of entertainment, just like me, as there are people who aren't because they don't think it's worth it. And that's fine, it just means that this type of entertainment is not for them, and they probably need to find a different kind of entertainment that suits them best.

                                        Heavens_Edge

                                        Heavens_Edge pay webnovel €1 for ~4400 words

                                        If you are quoting my words, use it properly.

                                        1ss gives 200 words.
                                        100ss gives 20 000 words
                                        You can get 100 ss for either 1$ or 2$ (I can buy 50 and get 50 bonus ones, that's what I'm refferign to, there ain;t any 50% off)
                                        That means you can read 5000/10 000 words/1$

                                        Two:

                                        Heavens_Edge 1000ss for access to premium chapters

                                        There ain't such thing as far as I know? If you mean privledge, then you should realise that its ADDITIONAL service. You don't need to use it. In the very essence of it, authors/translators can upload MORE chapters than they were suposed to for an additional price to unlock them, it's not like you need to ever buy it.

                                        Heavens_Edge ‘average’ chapter costs

                                        That's why instead of using average chapter lengs, it just went back to using cost/words

                                        All in all, if you want to speak about something, do your research first. But all in all,

                                        Cantiara showed great reasoning

                                        Cantiara CrispyCritter When I pay money to webnovel, I personally am not paying for a finished product, like I get on Kindle; I am paying for a product to be finished. I see something I like and I want to see it continue, both for me and for others. So I reward both the author/translator and the mechanism (webnovel) that allows me to find such work by buying SS, and if I really like it, by buying Privilege.

                                                      MotivatedSloth What kind of half-baked comeback is this? First you pick three pieces of text and pull them out of context then you dare to say I need to check my stuff.
                                                      First point, I was not quoting you I was using your analogy. €1 for 4400 is based on my calculation including privilege chapters. Then you come with the counter “that doesn’t count, this is an ADDITIONAL SERVICE”. No, you are wrong, it does count. This is comparable to when a book goes on sale after it is no longer regarded as new.

                                                          Heavens_Edge You got it wrong too. $1 is worth 10k words at webnovel. I'm not saying he is right though, because he always goes with the low range numbers. But that is the price for words. (and $1 is worth less than 1 euro). If you want to compare, compare completed books too. On kindle etc you buy completed volumes or books, therefore compare to completed volumes or books of the same quality and fame. The book he mentioned has a manga, anime and lightnovel... it's not some contracted stuff, that a newbie author came up with. They are able to charge more for such things, because the author made a name for himself.

                                                          If you compare to TKA for example, that is a completed book. It's popular, and has other medias surrounding it (manga and so on). TKA first volume is free, but let's assume its not. 90 chapters, that is how much it has. TKA I checked and 10 coins is an average (it could even be 11, as usually it was 12, 11 per chapter). if I take the same numbers as you guys did, then one could read this book in 30 days. With coins alone, that would equal to 900 coins, which is around $10 (with the bonus of course). If I were to subtract the fast passes, you'd pay nothing. Literally, nothing. 30 days means 90 fast passes.

                                                          Of course, that is under the condition, someone would actually spend 30 days reading 90 chapters... which is bs. In reality, the price would be around the same, as it is for the first volume of that other novel. Sure you get a copy with kindle. You can read it offline, and pretty much anywhere in the world. While others can argue that you get over 2x the amount of words for TKA. My problem is not the well known and popular novels, because webnovel has the right to charge that amount for them, no problems there. The problem is original stories, where they have poor editing, while the price stays the same.

                                                          On what basis should TKA cost the same, as some no name novel with mistakes? Price wise, it's not that different, it's the quality wise that differs (Besides, I said that at the beginning, it's basically the same. Only you get copies of the books with kindle, and you can even subscribe to get a lot more books cheaper).

                                                          @Cantiara Completed novels can be compared, so long they compare apples to apples. Completed novels here, would get rid of privilege, and under that pretence, they can be compared. (A completed volume of a book at amazon, and a completed volume at webnovel). That is comparable, so long they promote the same quality and fame. If you compare a well known book like I don't know Game of Thrones, to some new contracted work at webnovel, you don't have a comparison. A well know author against some guy or gal the webnovel community barely heard about... not a correct comparison. I never had a problem with people paying either. I mean what people do with their money, is not my concern. The equilibrium so far is only thanks to those bonus coins... for now. But yea, the best method is to wait and see.

                                                              DarkRay You are also not considering privileged chapters.

                                                              The point I am trying to make is that nobody is willing to pay €42,- per month for a single webnovel. You guys know, just as well as I, that these privilege chapter are out there, for free. The loyal paying webnovel customers are not going to stick around loyally waiting or loyally paying. They will move on and this app will lose, again, a big chunk of its customers. Just like when that happened when 50 privilege chapters for ~€50,- were a thing. After webnovel noticed this after two months they reverted to 20 privilege chapters for €21,-

                                                              I like this app, think it is sad and I do not want this to happen. One of the reasons I am here is for the community, to discuss the story in the comments in the latest released chapter.

                                                              However when people start to defend this with invalid arguments I can not shut my mouth.
                                                              And mark my words, webnovel will revert/adjust these changes again within two months just like their last stupid decision but that will be too late, most of us loyal customers will have moved on by then.

                                                                Heavens_Edge

                                                                If you want to speak about privilege, you need to learn what it is in the first place.

                                                                Take an imaginative scenario.
                                                                An author gets 100 chapters free and goes premium. His release schedule is 2 chapters/day and he diligently sticks to it. But he realises that not only is his book pirated, the amount of loyal readers he has isn't enough for him to make even this 200$ per month (if you earned less in said month, you need to wait for the payment till the time when your combined income will cross this mark, in short - WN is not making transfers for less than 200$ which is rational considering various transfer fees that banks slap on top of it).

                                                                So he decided to work REALLY hard for some time and creates a privilege for 10/20 chapters.

                                                                That means he will STILL release 2 chapters a day without a hiccup (at least, that's the idea) but if someone can't wait to read next part of the story, they can UNLOCK THE PRIVILEGE to buy the stockpiled chapters. Meaning, you can pay additionally to read in advance.

                                                                What's more, if authors want to be kind to his readers, he can slap a discount to the chapters locked behind privilege. For example my idea for setting up the correct privilege:

                                                                The author writes 1k long chapters, always costing 6 coins.
                                                                He writes 2 chapters a day, so that means his monthly output of published chapters is worth 30x2x6 = 360ss/coins
                                                                So he sets the price for 10 chapters at 80 coins and adds 25% discount to the chapters, or 160 coins for 20 chapters privilege and 50% discount for the chapters.

                                                                That means that the amount paid by the user isn't changing at all, but the author can ensure that at least this 10-20 chapters have less chance to be pirated.

                                                                For the free user, he will still be able to unlock all the chapters with free passes, but if he wants to read the advanced ones, he would need to fork out some money and support the author (because both the privilege and privileged chapters can only be bought with coins or so I heard.)

                                                                Of course, most of the authors want to actually make money out of the privilege, so they can, for example, make the price of 10 chapters from the previous example to be 200 coins without any discount, and 20 chapters privilege would cost 500 coins, with 10% discount to encourage people to buy this more expensive package.

                                                                But you need to remember, that privilege isn't compulsory to read the book! If a book is FINISHED but still has privileged chapters, just ask the staff to remove it, I saw the situations when it happened. It's a translator/author's fault for not changing the status of the novel to the finished.

                                                                But all in all, if there is priviledge or not, you don't need to bother yourself with it. Without the priviledge, you wouldn't be able to read those chaptes in advance at all, with priviledge you can BUY access to those chapters in advance. That's all there is to it.

                                                                PS; Just noticed your last post. It's not WN setting up the prices for the privilege. It's all in the hands of author/translator.

                                                                For example, I can (and will soon) set up privilege for my chapters.... to 1 coin. Because that will probably lock the pirates from botting my story on their site, while readers won't be influenced by it at all.

                                                                    Zero_Profile Agreed. Someone is throwing around a lot of numbers and assuming a lot of things and writing long ass screeds, but at the end of the day the math is simple.

                                                                    As an example: consider Ghost Emperor Wild Wife, which is complete at 2262 chapters. Assuming premium kicks in only after the first 100 chapters, that comes out to 2162 chapters that must be unlocked. Assuming 3 passes per day, and that you read the book over the course of a year, that's 1067 chapters to be paid for, each of which seems to be consistently 4 coins. At the current best rate of 2500 coins for $50, that works out to ... the lovely price of $85.

                                                                    And what does that $85 get us? Do we get a pdf copy of the novel we can read at anytime, at our leisure? Do we get excellent editing, quality control, and consistent releases? No. We get none of that. Instead, we have to spread out our reading time over the course of a year, in order to keep the price from being even more ridiculous, and we get novels full of poor writing and bad plotting compounded by translations with inconsistent quality and highly variable timing. On top of that, the year timeline is ASSUMING that the translator and author are even capable of consistently putting out 3+ chapters a day, which is a laughable assumption. In fact you may have to wait for several years (at which point the cost of the novel goes down, but so does your interest in it).

                                                                    IMHO, under no circumstances is any novel on this website worth $85. And the example novel I picked is one with comparatively cheap chapters. Consider a novel like Lord Xue Ying where the chapters are 12 coins and the price skyrockets.

                                                                    To me there are two possible conclusions: Qidian is either greedy and/or has an unreasonable business model. I wonder if the prices couldn't be made more reasonable if it implemented quality control by dropping unreliable and unskilled translators, and maintained a smaller roster of high quality novels instead of going for quantity over quality, which means it has to pay a lot of people.

                                                                      ChuYang
                                                                      People are likely to read your "free" novel on "pirate" sites simply so as not to increase traffic to the WN site. After all, their aggressive way of earning money has caused many people to go to pirate sites, causing an emptying in the community. I'm sure most of the community doesn't like WN because they don't give a shit about their customers (readers).
                                                                      While they are making money from the works, they will only increase their value, after all, there are people who come happily to defend their profit.

                                                                        MotivatedSloth pff benefiting . Lol they earn more money per day than you Will in your life

                                                                            MotivatedSloth ah, so you are an author. Then you probably know what you are talking about and have my utmost respect (no sarcasm).
                                                                            Do you think webnovel takes a bigger margin than they should?

                                                                                Heavens_Edge Can't really judge, I'm still in my first month of premium, so I will get any real information about it at 5th january only, but even with that, we do not get a detailed data, only the total income (from what other authors showed me), meaning that I won't have any grounds to judge it properly.

                                                                                (I won't have any info regarding how many of my chapters were bought with bonus coins/fast pass compared to how many were bought with paid coins)

                                                                                PS: My book is still far for being profitable enough, so I aim for minimum guarantee system for now, but I'm already working on another novel that will be able to compete in terms of quality instead of attracting attention with smut and cover

                                                                                    So. 😳 A lot of math was tossed around. I still don't get it.

                                                                                    😆 But this conversation thread has been interesting. Nothing like some passion for that spicy new year.

                                                                                    Anyway. I'm going back to watching Life of Brian. and his friend Biggess Diccuss... 😉

                                                                                    To all the writers and readers. We all have valid points.

                                                                                    I commend and applaud my fellow writers. The effort and time being put into various works are beyond words, even if some works are below our readers' expectation of a good work (though writers, like myself, could put more effort into the writing quality).

                                                                                    I also appreciate and thank the readers for being there, loyally. You are truly amazing. I truly understand your frustration. But, don't let your anger cloud your mind. Whether you are paid readers or not, we need you. I hope your love for your prefered works and authors, will make you to continue rendering your support.

                                                                                    Let's keep writing and reading, as true Daoists that we are.

                                                                                    Happy new year in advance. I hope we all have cause to celebrate in this coming year.

                                                                                      Cantiara. I def feel like if I indulged myself like I want to I would be paying over a hundred for 1 novel. Where it really gets expensive is ready multiple novels at once.

                                                                                      BTW I figured out how to farm however the books still end up locked which is total bs in my opinion. Especially since they prices to convert has increase. So now im starting novel after novel until they lock just to get accumulate points to convert to finish the first novels I've started. Smh its as draining/pointless as it sounds and my last attempt to hang on to this app.

                                                                                          MotivatedSloth What made you decide to go premium? I just got a contract from them 2 days back, so I am not sure what do to. There had been lots other people saying its a selling your soul contract, I am new in this novel business so I am not sure.

                                                                                              lunate
                                                                                              First thing first, did you get the contract offer through the inkstone or the email?

                                                                                              This is something I'm actually angry about, they are testing this feature without informing people about it (I mean, they should make some announcment for the authors, instead of just informing about it on the inkstone.)
                                                                                              So, if you got your contract offer on inkstone, then sorry to break it down to you, but it's not real. It's just something they are testing out right now.

                                                                                              And about going premium - Being able to put a food on my table through my writing is one of my longest dreams. Even if my book quality isn't sufficient to make it big with it, I'm trying to make up to it by simply writing a lot, and I'm actually working on my new novel that would be far better and more serious than my current one.

                                                                                              While I get why a lot of people are negative towards the contract because of various reasons that I can't really state here, I believe it's an equal trade off. You lose something and you gain something. All in all, no matter what people say, it's an easy way to actually try earning money through your writing so if you don't mind some clauses, I think you should go for it.

                                                                                              And don't forget, most of those "bad" parts in the contract are there just to secure WN intrest. I never heard of anything from those most drastic parts being actually implemented in real life.

                                                                                                  Yea i got it through inkstone

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

                                                                                                      Keilz

                                                                                                      Yes, if you read multiple novels all at once it definitely could get pretty expensive. I am currently following 3 novels, 2 translated, one original, and all privileged. I'm spending quite a lot of money on them. I used to follow more novels, but that was several months ago when I had a lot of time to kill because I was sick, hospitalized, and after that had to stay a few months at home to recover. Now that I'm back at work full time, I naturally had to reduce the number of novels to read here because I simply don't have as much free time as before anymore, which is a fortunate thing. Okay, maybe I can squeeze some time for 1-2 novels more because after all, a chapter read is just around five minutes (well, and then there's this additional 10-15 minutes for me, personally, to put my thoughts in a comment. If you know me from the novels that I'm following, you would see that I often leave chapter comments, and I'm the type that can and would write an essay in them, but this habit has also been reduced because of the time constraint). So, yeah, if I were to go on a full indulgence mode, I could probably squeeze 1-2 more novels into my active reading list. But I don't want to. I don't think it's worth it. Besides, there are still quite a lot of (physical) books on my bookshelves that are still waiting to be read.

                                                                                                      Self-indulgence isn't a bad thing per se, but it's also important to have self-control. IMHO, 3 free fast passes a day are enough to indulge yourself, especially if you don't want to spend your own money and make a purchase. There are other alternatives to entertainment than just WN, without having to resort to supporting piracy. Read real books. If you don't want to spend money on them, go to your local library and check out a book. Invite your friends/family/neighbors/colleagues to play board games. Go have a long walk in the park (it's healthy!) or explore your city. Play free online games. Really, a lot of things to do for entertainment than just reading a novel on WN.

                                                                                                      I understand the frustration with these changes, but you're in control of your own life. Your fun and happiness should not depend on whether or not you get free coins from WN.

                                                                                                      Anyway, I keep saying 'You', but the stuff I just wrote is not directly addressed to you, per se. It's for all the people that are still bitter about these WN changes. People, come on, there are more to life than just this site/app. Go out, socialize, have fun with your loved ones! Seriously, just spend half an hour outside and you'll forget WN in no time.

                                                                                                      Oh, and BTW, you actually don't have to read the novel in order to farm points. I learned about this from @Yuki_Qing. You can just set your page to turning mode instead of scrolling and click through the pages without having to read the content until you get an ad. Just think of it as a game, and you'll farm a lot of points in no time.

                                                                                                      Peace out ✌️

                                                                                                      EDIT: The advice to go out was meant for those who aren't confined to bed/home due to sickness. But even if you can't leave home, there are still a lot of things to do than just read a novel here. Read real books, play puzzles, write a blog, watch TV, news (it's good to stay updated with current affairs), watch stuff on YouTube, cook, learn to cook, etc, etc, etc.

                                                                                                          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.

                                                                                                              Web Novel Novel Ask