NPC1 I'm a free user, but I'm not going to complain about getting less free stuff than I used to have. It's not my privilege to get free stuff as a free user. While I don't agree with how WN operates, it's more on a lack of communication and customer management side because I agree with you, such drastic changes don't bode well for their customer loyalty.

With that said, any argument about some pirating or plagiarizing will always be an ethics argument. I have no respect for those that leave this site because they can read for free on pirate sites.

Although I get what you're trying to say with that iPhone analogy, that isn't the best example to use because it's a physical product that's more traceable and monitored than stories on a writing platform. Unless that iPhone is being sold for £1 on Ebay or something similar, I can see why yeah, someone might buy that instead. But that's given that the ebay seller is legit. Anything that's not legit, I'm pretty sure Apple would find and likely take legal measure towards unauthorized sellers.

WN has a lot they need to fix. But free users whining to get back free stuff is something I'd never support. If the paid users are significantly affected, that's another issue (like if a coin used to cost 1 cent but now it's 2 cents). But free stuff (that free users also get) should always be taken out of that equation even for paid users. However, I hardly see any paid users complaining. It's just free ones.

    NPC1

    Actually, on the contrary to what you believe, according to the information that I got, the abolishment of free coins has shown a strong increase in authors' earning for the month of January.

      Tomoyuki
      Chryiss
      I'm not taking about the usage of fan fics for money. That's another mired pit of sludge. I'm saying that from 1¢ of ad revenue, they provide 100 points to the reader which may be used toward a fast pass. Let's say that only half the points used to buy the cheaper fast pass are from ads. So the fast pass is worth 5¢ and was used to unlock a chapter. Suppose every week, 1000 fast passes from points are used to unlock your contracted novels, and the royalty is 20%. That's $500 per year that Webnovel has earned through a loophole.

            KoraL Er, I suppose? :thinking: I see what you're getting at, but I caution on using math when we don't know actual numbers. Fast passes are 1000 or 2000 points (idk why some ppl are buying the 2k ones instead of the 1k ones first lol), so people would have to see 500-1000 ads before they get a single fast past. Some readers do read that much, but apparently now you're limited to how many points you can receive in a day.

            So the individual benefit and loss on reader and writer sides might be small, but I can understand how that can accumulate for WN's ads revenue in a year. But honestly, them earning $500 a year doesn't bother me. It's so little money really, especially if you try dividing that between all the writers.

            And as you said, fanfic is a whole other swamp. While I don't think profiting off another's intellectual/creative property is right, I imagine some fanfic authors (not me) might feel disgruntled should original writers get ad revenue, but they don't. This whole ad revenue is on the fine line of making money off of using another's property, or as "support" toward the writer individually. (As some fanfic writers receive contracts that allow gift options on their books, but not locked chapters, using this reasoning.)

            This platform hosts stories for free (something that gets easily forgotten and ignored, taken for granted), and those farming novels get free exposure for their novels. I think a few cents per writer is a fair price to return these two core benefits. Webnovel probably spends more than the average website to host the amount of data on this site and maintain it too. I don't see $500 as a loophole, but another method that gives "free" content to readers and exposure to writers while also benefitting WN. On an individual basis, this seems fair enough to me. The incremental profit WN might gain, imo, is too insubstantial for a writer to fight and waste time for. That's all.

            This became longer than I meant it to be. In short, I just don't think it's worth it for a few pennies a month. And it's not like WN is the only one that benefits with this points and farming structure. If it did significantly contribute to writer's profits, then of course, I'd 100% be right there with you.

                YulongYuXianTaiyin As mentioned above, some fanfic writers apparently receive contracts that allow gift options on their books. They can't profit with coins and locked chapters; instead, gifts are likened to encouraging "donations" on Patreon. Readers can essentially support the author to write, and not necessarily also the content. It's a bit of a gray area, but I understand/accept that reasoning. It's like a how a YouTube singer that covers actual artists' songs can receive monetary support through Patreon or some other means.

                    Tomoyuki the problem is there are novels with over 1000 pages and every single page costs a fast pass or coins, even though the book has been out for over 2 years. There used to be a passive earning system that just gave you 1 kind of currency for the app for reading. Instead of 2 different kinds of currency setting a privilege system.To me with this new system and membership crap they're saying "Those that spend actual money get whatever content they want, while the rest of you readers that can't afford it you f*ck off and watch some ads" essentially. I used to love using this app because I was able to read continuously while constantly earning the app currency that supports you creators. But now I can't anymore and it sucks because I love the book I'm reading but I can't read it unless I spend either coins that I can't afford or a fast pass I have to buy with this dumb point exchange system that doesn't even work half the time. It's getting harder and harder to want to support creators on this platform now because of this stupid system. The in app currency is what supports you right? So why can't they just go back to the old system where you can passively earn coins for reading again and just keep it at that. Readers will feel more inclined to read your stuff for longer, and you'll continue getting revenue from it because they're spending the coins they earn on your story to continue reading it.

                        AMB345 There's a slight misunderstanding here. The previous single in app currency SS actually had 2 tiers (free and paid). The free tier did nothing to support authors and the paid tier actually supported authors. If you were gifting free SS to authors, they were paid nothing.

                          AMB345

                          1.

                          AMB345 "Those that spend actual money get whatever content they want, while the rest of you readers that can't afford it you f*ck off and watch some ads"

                          OBVIOUSLY. Otherwise why the f*ck would you spend actual money if you can't get whatever content you want?! If you're paying actual money, you would think you can get the content you are paying for. Isn't that like the most obvious thing about a transaction? Why are you complaining about that? Do I got into a bookshop and complain that those people who spend actual money can buy whatever book they want, while demanding to receive a book for free just because I spent some time staring at the posters and ads posted all over the walls of the bookshop? Good luck convincing the bookshop staff then. Why should people who don't pay actual money get the same amount of content as those who pay? How is that fair to someone who spends actual money? Are you trolling, or are you really that dense?

                          2.

                          AMB345 Readers will feel more inclined to read your stuff for longer, and you'll continue getting revenue from it because they're spending the coins they earn on your story to continue reading it.

                          This is completely untrue. Writers do not get revenue from free coins. Bonus coins, coins that you earn for free by watching daily ads/checking in/voting do NOT bring revenue. Writers only get revenue from paid coins that were actually purchased through Paypal, bonus coins and free coins do NOT give revenue at all. This is probably the main reason for splitting the currency into two, to differentiate the free currency that generates no revenue, from the paid one that actually gives writers revenue.

                                Chryiss Well $500 was an estimate based on 1000 cheapo fast passes to a single popular novel. There were at least 40k cheapo fast passes sold last week and 20k pricy fast passes sold, so multiply that $500 number by 80 to cover total approximate avoided royalties of $40k. Also, I don't know if a 20% royalty is accurate, but a 25% royalty changes the number to $50k and 15% changes it to $30k that isn't being distributed to authors.

                                    KoraL Fast passes and points do not generate revenue, so I have no idea where you pulled that $500 figure from. Are you talking about ads? Let's say you watch an ad every 2 minutes, which gives you 5 points or so. To get a fast pass for 1,000 points, you'll need to watch 200 ads. According to CKTalon, Webnovel gets only 0.02 cents per ad view. So that's 4 cents for a single fast pass. Even if you somehow get 1,000 fast passes, that's $40, nowhere near the $500 you're claiming. Let's multiply that by 80 as you suggested - so you have $3,200 that isn't being distributed to authors. Given that you have close to a few hundred contracted authors on this site, you have to divide the $3,200 among a few hundred (let's say 300). So, what, they avoid paying us $10 (if it's 500, it's basically $6)? And how do you distribute this "avoided royalties" among the writers, given that we are paid per view?

                                    In fact, given the minimum guaranteed sum, it's fair to say that this extra revenue being generated by ads goes to paying the $200 (or $400 for older writers) that's guaranteed for new contracted writers, regardless of how much they earn (for example, I only get paid $1 in my first month because I'm such a pathetic writer and nobody wants to read my stories - Webnovel is paying me $399 out of their own pocket - where do you think they get this money from? Most likely from other revenues, such as those generated by ads). So what exactly is there for us to complain about? That we are denied $6-$10 a month?

                                        It's pretty obvious to me that fast passes and coins are only meant to give you samples of the content behind a paywall. If you really want to support your favorite novel, then paying to support the author's writing is the obvious choice.
                                        If you can't afford it, then you settle for the hundreds and thousands of free novels that are available, in which chances are, you'll end up finding something else similar.

                                        Tomoyuki The math was done in a prior post assuming ads gave 2 points a piece and 500 was per annum per thousand fast passes per week. I don't actually know the contract details, and since it's all hush hush, of course I wouldn't know about the guarantee portion as I don't know if the royalty bit was accurate either. I do know though that if your royalty payout ever exceeds the guarantee amount, Webnovel has at least broken even on your writing guarantee based on a 50% quota share.
                                        Also, you may not mind losing out on 100 USD a year, but others may not.

                                            KoraL Given that you're given $800 for the first 4 months in return, minimum, I don't think you can complain about that.

                                            Furthermore, you have not addressed any of the points I have made. How do you divide that among writers? It's not an equal distribution because obviously some readers get more views (the ads are on their stories) than others, so it's not fair to just give each person $10. Not to mention, those non-contracted writers or fanfiction writers also contribute to the ad pool (sort of) or earning points from reading for a certain amount of time. Should they get paid from the pool of ad revenue too? How does that even make sense? What do we do about these guys who post stories for free, and people generate points for free on their stories? Have you taken those points accumulated this way into account? Additionally, $10 is just an estimation, and it's probably even less than that because you get 5 points for reading a story for 2 minutes WITHOUT any ads. Let's assume that only half the points are earned from ads, and the other half from reading alone. So it's probably about $3-5, rather than $6-10. Are you seriously going to revolt just because you miss out on $60 a year despite receiving $800-1,600 for the first four months?

                                            That just sounds like greed to me, a case of biting the hand that feeds you just because they don't give you the pocket change they earn over ads. I can tell you that in real life, you just get the salary that is owed to you, even if it's commission based. If your company generates extra income from other sources of avenue (ads, sponsors, whatever), they can give you bonuses, but they are not legally obligated to do so. Thinking that they are is just naivety. I assume you have a job and are employed by a company? Read up the clauses on your contract regarding bonuses.

                                            Also, if you don't know the contract details, and aren't sure of anything, why are you coming up with all these assumptions and asking us to revolt, or assuming that we aren't "okay" with it? If we signed it, we're probably okay with it, otherwise we wouldn't have signed it in the first place.

                                                Tomoyuki I wouldn't suggest equal distribution. I would actually suggest that the earned fast passes be counted as a new valued currency that is probably disproportionately spent on higher ranking novels. In this case, the top 10 or so contacted authors would likely see the greatest imputed loss, possibly ammounting to several times what the average writer would see. You speak as if salary, bonus, commission, and royalties are all the same, but they're not. The work I produce for my employer is exclusively theirs; they are nice to provide a non-zero bonus to incentivise me to continue to produce work for them. If I were paid a commission, it would be an amount I get based on a single sale of a product I do not own that they provided. If I were paid a royalty, it should be a share of the revenue/profit they earned from selling a product I produced that I still have rights to.

                                                In the contracts, are you getting royalties, commissions, or bonuses? I'm sorry if I misunderstood the payment structure and you are a contractor getting paid for piecework with the occasional bonus.

                                                I am arguing that they are selling the product by means of a ticket that they provided in exchange for some form of compensation. It would be like saying that if comrade pays Webnovel $5000 on behalf of their community, and Webnovel gives the entire community (excluding our generous comrade) your book for free in exchange, you should be happy to get none of it and it would be greedy to ask for any of it as part of a royalty.

                                                Currently the scale is rather small, so I suppose it doesn't matter, but it's easier to negotiate when the operation is not overly profitable and still in its infancy. And to put things into perspective, there are a slew of class action lawsuits settled over "losses" that amount to less than $20 per person.

                                                    KoraL

                                                    It doesn't really matter. It's like the two for the price of one (buy one get one free) marketing tactic to get the zero price effect. All the "free" stuff given by WN (free coins, fast passes, points from reading) is just something that they do to keep readers on the platform until they're converted to paying readers. And most authors on this site understand this. Hence they volunteered their novels, out of their own will, to participate in the farming program, knowing they won't get anything from the ads revenue. They know they need to sacrifice something in order to get something better in return.

                                                      Chryiss I was under the impression for years that fanworks (fan fiction) is illegal to make any kind of profit off of, since all rights go to the original creator and that would be stealing. I don't know if they have those laws in China, but I'm willing to bet on it. I believe Patreon falls under that category. Although I know you can sometimes make money off of Doujinshi, but fanfiction? There's a lot of debate on the topic since it's clearly defined as illegal to make a profit off of, plus copyright infringement, but it seems in recent years there have been some 'lax' changes (like Amazon). But it's still stealing. Also, if Patreon is allowed to the point you're making an income, then so many other fanworks deserve it more than the ones on here. This site isn't even set up enough for fanfiction.

                                                          YulongYuXianTaiyin

                                                          1) Fan fiction is illegal. Period.
                                                          2) Most sane authors won't complain about non-profit fan fiction since they draw attention to the original work.
                                                          3) Making money from fan fiction is a big no-no. That's cashing in on someone else's IP.
                                                          4) The Webnovel contract makes it absolutely clear that 'cashing in on someone else's IP' is exactly the business model they're after in the first place. You sign off every copyright to adaptions and even give away the right to create more stories based on your own work.

                                                            YulongYuXianTaiyin I was under that same impression, so that’s why I was surprised such fanfic contracts exist on here. But as StenDuring says, knowing Webnovel, it’s doesn’t surprise me that they allow this. I don’t know whether those fanfic authors make any living income off their witting though. I highly doubt it.

                                                                Chryiss Gifts only provide a few cents to most fanfic authors as a monthly income, if they are lucky.

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