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?
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.
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.
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.
Public views don't really matter, but valid views, valid view rate and average number of chapter read are very important.
Because for someone to read you more than one minute definitely means your synopsis was interesting enough and he gave your story a try. I think a valid view rate below 40% or an average number of chapters read below 1 per day shows some problems.
Arkinslize With all due respect, I'm not on this website for a month. I'm aware how statistics work, I simply replied to views. (look at the name of the topic).
The short and sweet answer (not necessarily to OP’s question, but just in how to get a lot of views):
Update daily
There, done.
Yes, the above answers are great. Thus, I’m not repeating it. Basically, no matter how good your story is, or how (un)popular the genre is, as long as you update daily, consistently, you’ll get views and a following. Might not be as many as you’d like, but forget it if you’re updating only once a week, you’ll most likely not be getting 1M in a year. Not even kidding on this. Ofc, what’s mentioned about being strategic in getting on certain lists quickly is very good advice.
If this is any help as a frame of reference.
I’m not contracted, been here for a year. Ignore the stat dump if not interested. :p
Story 1:
- Jan 25th start/~1 year
- original
- entered in a contest for only 3 days
- 48 chapters
- good grammar
- once a week updates
- frequent month hiatuses of no updates/no longer updated on WN
- <200 collections
- 171K
Story 2:
- March 26 start/~ 10 months
- original
- entered in a contest for entire duration and ranked in contest
- 29 chapters
- good grammar
- once a week updates
- frequent month hiatuses of no updates/on hiatus currently until the summer
- 200-300 collections
- 141K views
Story 3:
- April 25 start/~ 9 months
- fanfic
- entered in a contest for entire duration and ranked in contest
- 58 chapters
- good grammar
- once a week updates
- was on hiatus for 4 months/just returned back from hiatus yesterday
- >1000 collections
- 325K views
Make of what you will from this sample info. Basically, this just shows no matter the differences, the longer a novel exists with more chapters = more views. Fanfic doesn’t really count since you asked about originals, but it’s still in the same vein. The only major difference is collections number rather than views when looking at original vs fanfic, which makes sense.
I update 3 times/week. I think I'm at 4 or 5 months, and just about to hit 100k views. Though I think my valid views are pretty good, usually average around 70%. 240 collections, 61 chapters so far.
I guarantee you if you name you novel something like "Re-Born as Grand Harem Sexy System", use a very titillating cover, post 8 chapters a day, and spam a bit you'll reach those million views in a couple of months at most.
I joke but at the same time I'm not. Views and readership are not necessarily the same thing and what determines a book's visibility and clickability is a mass formula of things. What is the genre- what are the hooks? If you get the right hook for a high viewing demographic- then you have you rmillions of views. Same concept in viral video and any curated content.
CCmei Yep, I remember a Writer on here writing a 'harem system novel' as a joke, it got millions of views fast which took him by surprise..
Sorry, i just thought reading you that dashboard stats meant nothing for you. My bad.
It wouldn't have been an issue either. There's probably quite a few authors that don't give a shit about them.
