Yes, promotion also plays a role. Usually this happens through a review, but no one will come in and give just that. Usually this is done through a swap or an honest review in the topics on the forum. Voting with stones, more reviews, more ratings, 60-80 reviews. But it is not sports. I got 10 reviews, this is enough to go out of the shadow into the rating. Further, it all depends on the novel itself, which sleeps on two pillars - good grammar and a good and interesting plot.
How long does it take to reach a million views for an original novel?
Impurr_fectionist 1m views does not equate 1m people. It's enough for someone to clicks your novel, and a view is counted. As @Gourmet_DAO said, there are cases where people get it in 2 moths time, if they skyrocket from the start. I know a guy who did this in around 2.5 months, and he has a good ranking as well as became contracted very early. He also releases at least 7 chapters a week? Or perhaps more than that.
It is possible to gain such views rather quickly (but mostly for contracted novels). In case of not contracted novels, I'd say 5 months is very good too (in other words 200k views a month, that is not little by all means). A year is... people read it sure, but the interest is not that great basically. As he mentioned, it will depend on the story, your ability to churn out chapters like crazy and if you are contracted or not.
DarkRay Yes, for sure, I lost sight of the contact.
Who has a contract is promoted using the administrative resource of the site, applying marketing moves for higher readability. This is a business!
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There's also a reality that stories won't move in reads here if it's not suited for WN mass reading audience.
I follow a story that has been sitting on 85k views for a year. It's good quality grammar and story telling, but in depth and with complex arcs.
From what an editor here has advised. As I understand it. WN casual readers aren't after deep, slow build plot lines that is found in traditional books. Simple, fast and compelling is what works.
Stories that requires a lot of expanded thinking and having to take time to understand concepts etc, doesn't cut it. At least from my understanding of editors' advice. So these stories are less likely to reach 1M views within a year.
Basically, WN requests for your cheap trash that is easily replaceable. Gotcha. :stuck_out_tongue:
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It depends a lot of how much you can be promoted early on.
-1st: An original novel can appear in new ranking only if it has more than 15k words and less than 30 days. So if you update too slowly or few words, you will maybe never appear in these rankings. You lost your best chance to promote yourself.
-2nd: WPC contest: Even bad stories will get a lot of attention during the contest if they're participating. The winner is featured, but you can also be featured anyway without doing any WPC contests if Webnovel judges that your story has potential.
- High release rates: Your views will soar in the 2-3 hours following the release. If you can update twice a day, don't release them at the same time. (8-12% daily views are obtained in the hour following the release)
- Every chapter viewed(even read for 1sec) counts for the public view counter. It means that if you did 100 views with 1 chapter and the story was interesting, you can expect 1000 views per day with 10 chapters, 10k with 100 chapters ect.. Normally the growth rate should soar the more chapters your story have. (but not necessarily the valid views on your dashboard) If not, you can consider it a failure and would be better starting all over again with a new one.
kazesenken er, well, I guess if you put it like that 
it’s like views of deep in content, multi-level meanings, sometimes hidden in some images, of old Tarkovsky films like “Solaris” or “Stalker”. Films are very difficult, even heavy, it is difficult to watch them. But then they are from the genre - for eggheads. And you can watch simple, funny, uplifting moods of the drama "Agricultural Stories" or Drunken Master 2, Project A, Snack Bar on Wheels. Personally, I will choose films from Jackie. Since life itself is very complicated and by no means so cheerful.
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I understand your point. The slightest info dump in chapter 1 is bashed when many international printed best-sellers start by a very informative prologue, sometimes up to 10k words long.
However, the genre has a big role to play too i think. Some kinds of stories are just more popular.
Arkinslize Wow, that is, you need to publish at least 2-3 chapters a day to be popular?
I've tried to write raw materials with a gram-check program, 2-3 chapters a day. But it is so tiring, at the beginning of 4 weeks I was exhausted. And I hasten to complete the novel as soon as possible. It has only 100 chapters.
By the way, I saw novels in them 24 chapters and 60 thousand views. I have 82 chapters and 24,000 views. Since I did not start, write immediately 2-3 chapters a day.
So either you need to write like a computer, by the way I saw word generators for verses somewhere on the network, I wonder if there are machine generators for short stories ... it would be really hard to read if the machine wrote novels and someone else it would increase the rating (offtopic)
Arkinslize If not, you can consider it a failure and would be better starting all over again with a new one.
Too soon? What about giving the story a shot of revision first. A story can be as good as its 1000th edit. There's also researching the target audience better to try to fit? Better yet, find the target audience. WN is not the only place to reach 1M views.
I think it's too easy to give up on a story because it doesn't attract immediate results. There's all that growth as a writer going down the drain at not having to try to revise the plot or mechanisms, research more on market and retry.
I believe that only when all options and avenues have been tried and not giving results, to put the story aside. Or rethink it from a different angle.
Sometimes not giving up can gain some valuable growth insight.
I don't think much is gained when giving up after a few handful of chapter posts. It also might give readers a view of unreliability if they happen to see stories consistently being dropped after a few chapters by author because of not reaching a desired veiw count.
WN contracts ask for commitment to story completion. Dropping after a few chapter posts is also not a good habit to hone.
Just my 2 cents.
Veronica8 How complicated it is! Well, a good story, in theory, I have to read for a long time, delete repeated words, add new turns. use synonyms. To grind every word occupied, then from the point of view of grammar, spelling and syntax, everything will be fine. But at the same time we need a dynamically developing plot, an interesting story. Perhaps without fillers. But it takes time. Therefore, it will not be possible to publish 2-3 chapters a day, unless you write a novel right away, and then just publish 2-3 chapters a day?
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What i meant by failure is that you should start anew. It can be the same story, entirely revised, but at least you get the chance to be in new rankings and have some visibility again. Even better, if you change the title and the cover.
Especially, if your valid views have dropped on a day to day basis and the average number of chapters read keep lowering as well. If it's like this for months, it means your retention rate has become bad. The issue is that even if you revise your problematics chapters, the old readers that stopped reading you won't miraculously give a new read to your story. In their head, your story has already been labelled. The oldest your story, the highest will be the number of readers you definitely lost.
That's what i would do. I take all the advices, i keep what is good and remove what is bad, then start anew.
Of course, if you're contracted or aiming for paper edition, then finish your novel and take your time. It is another situation.
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Gourmet_DAO I guess it is based on genre. I've observed historical fiction take months to gain views, but some contemporary romance take weeks. Fantasy is a hit and miss target range. Especially if the lead is female and there's no romance. The reader pick-up is harder there.
Keep at it, to your own pace. Some readers do hang around for updates whenever they arrive as long as they know the story isn't going to be dropped.
Arkinslize Aah okay. Sorry. I mistook as dropping the story. Thanks for clarifying.
It is better to release 2-3 chapters a day, but update stability is the most important. However, whatever is your updating rate, i would advice to stockpile at least 15k words worth of content, so that you can appear in new ranking the first day.( I didn't do this though haha) You will also have a top rank in release ranking for the week coming.
Veronica8 Yep, that is exactly why my novel has such a shit ranking :D I saw it myself, how people overtook mine in views. But, I write how I like. I write the story I want to write, not a story based on popular tags and famous titles. At the end of the day, I see those who appreciate and actually analyse the book. They think about the plot, and events. I much prefer that with a smaller audience, than mindless reading with millions of views. Something people don't really pursue here I noticed.
Arkinslize
Veronica8
Thank you very much for the valuable advice, I’ll try to apply them to the new gourmet novel. In the meantime, you need to finish at least two novels from 4. Respect !!!
Estedei! the film of 2019, there for 10 seconds the Internet and the light went out, Google lost all the information about The Beatles and Harry Potter. Maybe that's why you need to backup our novels.
Although on a paper basis, the book lasts at least 200 years! Whereas the data on electronic media information may disappear. The format may change ... and all data will be lost. Paper will not let you down!
Gourmet_DAO I just wanted to share a good novel I liked in this platform( basically Copy Paste) around two weeks. I almost got 200 thousand views. (which resulted in webnovel to see the potential of the novel then they discovered it was copy past and cost it for other people. I didn't really wanted to profit from it. in fact I did asked the translator for the right for it.) anyway I agree with you. for viewers you need interesting story and good name for it.
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The_Good_Devil Famous advertiser O'Gilvey said that a good, capacious, not very long name attracts more people! The second important is a good slogan, the third high-quality product.