I noticed that when you go to redeem points for fast passes it's either 1 for 1,000 points or 1 for 2,000 points. What's the deal with charging double points for one fast pass?
Same amount of fast passes but different prices.
Because they can—especially since they limit one purchase (of each kind) per user. While it may not disappear entirely, WN looks to be going in the direction of removing free reading options (beyond the first 50 or so chapters).
WhenButterFlies Yeah, there used to be a few books every few days that you could read and now there are none. You used to be able to buy discount and reading passes with points but now you can only buy fast passes. Every few months they cut the free options a bit more until eventually there won't be a free option.
My guess is that they aren't making much money, or at least not as much as they'd like.
Xaio_Long I could be wrong, but that’s the reason that makes the most sense to me as well. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not it works out for them.
Going after the bigger spenders is a legitimate strategy. The trick is whether or not there's enough big spenders to meet the financial goals. Along with enough paying customers agreeing on how much they value each novel.
It’s not that difficult to find "books" with an equal number of pages/word count and comparable editing on online retailers. There aren’t as many Eastern-type books in those places yet, but the number has been slowly growing so I’m hopeful.
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From a psychological standpoint, it's probably better to have just have one type of story purchase option, instead of both fast passes and coins. For one, I think people used to like buying spiritual stones, and coins make people think of real money. I think they should go back to something that isn't called coins. It's frankly doing the exact opposite of what spirit stones did, and it's making people feel prudent.
Obviously, there is a reason why certain establishments have you turn money into something else first. It's because you don't feel as aware of how much you're spending. If i was web novel, I'd go back to spirit stones because people were less afraid to buy them. In terms of a marketing strategy, coins is an extremely bad idea. People like to preserve coins and like to spend things called spiritual stones
Also, they should take out fast passes as well, and go back to the random system. You don't want people who are reading lovers to have to chose between two things. According to what I've read, they are less likely to use both of them. Just go back to the old way webnovel if you want to make money, or at least go back to something with a cooler name like spiritual stones.
It's also possible they could have something called an unlimited stone which can be used in place of fast passes. Sounds much cooler, less guilt provoking, and more like the stories people love.
My conclusion, Fast passes and coins need to go and something cooler needs to come back.
Her_Shadow That’s a really good point about the terms (spirit stones/coins) themselves. I hadn’t ever thought to wonder why games/apps call their currency everything and anything but money before. It’s a little crazy, but interesting, how something so small can have such a big influence on consumers.