Mhsj
Darth_Xiane I just checked, privilege starts on chapter 447 now. It seems to imply that the translators did put premium on already released chapters, but if the amount of chapters under privilege is more than 20, then you will have more chapters to read. Otherwise, you will be following the release rate again for the price of premium.
Less coins for the money
KoraL Thanks for explaining but it feels like such an unfair thing. I mean I paid n unlocked as normal to read. Then all of a sudden those I read came under that Privileged Purchase. I don't mind paying for new chapters but not what I've already read. Appreciate you taking time to explain. Thanks again.
Squish Those were bonus coins, and gave no payment to the author.
MotivatedSloth your so off it’s irritating I’m not sure if you an author or not but assuming you read outside of webnovel let’s do some basic math. A 400 page novel on amazon costs 7.99. Lets just assume a 100 chapters on webnovel equal something similar in word count. 12 spirit stones a chapter. 1200 stones over 20+ dollars now assume you have upwards of 500 chapters even on a multi novel model outside of this site your looking at maybe 35 dollars for 4 whole books. If we did the math on webnovel that’s over 90 dollars. Wake up kid.
Fin.
TheCaffinated incorrect coins were coins and didn’t get associated one way or the other. Unlock is unlock. There simply isn’t a way to designate individual coins with the volume this site does as “bonus” and not bonus coins. That’s one of the craziest excuses I have heard yet
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Squish You have made a glaring mistake in your calculations. That is "Fastpass". You get 3 fastpass per day, every day. That means, if you have patience, you can read 3 chapters of a book per day(irrespective of the chapter-length) every day and finish the entire book for free. Moreover, if you feel that the book is no longer to your tastes, you can readily drop it. Now, will Amazon cater to you like that? You pay for the entire cost of the book upfront only by reading the synopsis or a single chapter, that's it. If you are patient, reading books on Webnovel is basically dirt cheap or even free (Only greed makes you want to read 100+ chapters per day of more than 20+ books for free)
Overlord_Venus Shouldn't your last statement be: "Only greed makes you want to read 3+ chapters per day"? As there are only 3 fast passes a day?
Which means you can read a 500 chapter story in just over 166 days (or ~5.5 months) of daily collecting of free passes. About a year and a half (or 500 days if you prefer round numbers) for a 1,500 chapter story. Both scenarios assuming you only read the one story during the entire time period stated.
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Squish Incorrect. The site does differentiate bonus coins from paid coins. Can confirm because I got the information directly from my editor.
It's a holdover from the days of bonus Spirit Stones and paid Spirit Stones that was in place last year, where you get free Spirit Stones instead of Fast Pass, so yes, there is a way to designate individual coins.
Also, a 400-page novel on Amazon would likely have 120,000 to 150,000 words. 100 chapters that cost 12 spirit stones each is about 240,000 words. If you want to compare in terms of quantity and claim the high ground in basic math, get that right at least. I agree that the cost of webnovels are on the pricy side, and they really should consider giving discounts for bulk purchases (which some Privilege authors are doing), but it irks me whenever people equate 100 chapters as one book, as if any real book on Amazon or otherwise has 100 chapters (a standard paperback or Amazon novel that are 350-400 pages long would have 25-30 chapters) and twist the math in an exaggerated fashion to prove their point. At least be more honest about your calculations.
And MotivatedSloth is a contracted author, by the way. So I would trust his "math" over yours.
MotivatedSloth Dude, it's spelled "privileged." Ironically one of the reasons people have a problem paying so much for these novels is the writing quality tends to be on the very low end...
Every single aspect of your math is wrong.
400 page novel for 8$? Are you kidding me? No one would buy such book. Most novels on the amazon goes for either 3$ or 5$
Next, what is 400 pages? If you want to do ANY math, you use unified count, which in the case of novels, is word count.
Taking a quick look at what google says, 400 pages (double spaced, meaning - proper editing and nice look that doesn't tire the reader) is about 100k words.
If you take your example, it means that you pay 8$ for 100k words, so its 1k words for 0.08$
On the webnovel, if you take your average novel, first 100k words is free.
Yes, it's that simple.
But lets extend this example, to lets say twice as much.
In your example, you gotta pay 16$ already for 200k words.
On webnovel, you have 100k words for free, and 100k words paid, and worth 500ss (200words = 1coin), meaning that WITHOUT ANY PROMOTIONS you gotta pay 10$ for 100k words, which gives you 6$ diffrence when reading 200k worth of words on amazon and WN in favour for WN.
Additionally, you completly seems to forget about all the free passess (if we take standard of 1.5k words per chappie, it gives you 4.5k words for free DAILY)
Let's say you are patient enough and it takes you 5 days to read 200k words. It means, that you have more or less (rounding 4.5k top 5k) 125k words for free, while paying only 7.5$ for the remaining 75k words, giving you 7.5$ as compared to 16$ from amazon.
This math is completly wrong and too rounded up to be taken seroiusly, but I'm not going to go in deep calculations for someone like you, who can't even be bothered to understand the terms you are using.
And I know I'm irritating. Truth hurts.
Mate, don't compare my writing in novel and on the forums. I actually look up to all the mistakes before publishing the chapters, but why would I do so on the forums? Most of the people I'm replying to isn't worth even my reply in the first place, so making sure to fix the grammar would mean actually bullying them, since they would lose the only point they can bring in order to fight my words.
MotivatedSloth Haha, well said. :thumbup:
Was going to be all opinionated, but MotivatedSloth said it pretty well! However, I have to say I haven't paid $3 for a book in years that wasn't on someone's discount shelf... Most of my faves start at $10 or more (Butcher's new one is $15!! For an ebook!!!). I still think Webnovel is a good deal. No one says you have to buy Privilege or coins to read. It's all your choice.
But what really pisses me off is when pirate sites get promoted. I've had at least two promising bovels cut short because the authors couldn't figure out how to deal with their stuff getting illegally reposted....
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Being an avid reader, I can tell you that Black Library eBooks cost anywhere between US$15-US$19 for a 300-400-page novel.
Also, to those promoting cheap Amazon books, a lot of the Amazon books on Kindle Unlimited are actually amateur novels that are not professionally written, edited, or proofread. A lot of them are published by amateur writers who first test the waters in free writing sites such as Royal Road or Fictionpress, get a feel of the market, and when they get enough of a fanbase, they move over to Amazon and publish their books there (while removing the published chapters from Royal Road or Fictionpress because of contractual obligations). A lot of them do not hire professional editors, and they are aware that their stories, like those on Webnovel, are not professionally written, which is why they are willing to sell it for cheap on Amazon (for like $3-$5), just for a bit of extra pocket money.
I actually know a few of these Amazon writers, and because I'm their friend, I purchase their books to support them. They are amazing writers, yes, but quite frankly their standards are the same as many of the contracted writers here on Webnovel... (I don't mean plot, I mean language, editing, spelling, proofreading, etc. - one of my friends was adamant about not fixing his punctuation and formatting, even though I offered to help him).
MotivatedSloth
I don't understand how u do it. I have membershi] plus by 30 dollars of coins. Still not enogh. Maybe I read too many books.lol
RoseNBoys patience is the key. I generally read 3 chapters per day and gradually catch up to the current releases of books (since i generally read fantasy books which update at ost 2 per day). so patience is the key. sometimes when i am feeling impatiemt, i just buy heheh
MotivatedSloth Agree to disagree....Ultimately I didn’t create this thread to fight an author who is trying to make it. I wish you the best in the goal to become a full-time author. I saw where you said you moved back in with your parents and made less than someone who works at McDonald’s. I hate that for you.
We don’t know each other but I promise you I am the type of reader you would want to have. In the past year I have probably spent close to 5k?? Maybe more?? Supporting authors and different patreons of original authors. I wish there was a better way to know my spirit stones money was going to the author more instead of straight into webnovels pockets. I am currently supporting maybe 10-12 novels/translations full time and maybe 10-12 original works from authors on here.
My frustration comes from the lack of being able to enjoy more novels and the ones I have had to drop along there the way due to simply not being able to financially keep going. It seems there are several authors in this thread who have all immediately jumped on the “this person is greedy and doesn’t appreciate our work” opinion. While I don’t doubt there are quite a few people who have those thoughts I’ve never been of that mindset. Some of the best authors I’ve encountered are on here. I’m saddened the deals aren’t better.
Best of luck in your journey to follow your dreams
MotivatedSloth true. They deserve something goos too(authors)
Squish Haha, sorry dude. I assumed you were another of those readers who think they are entitled for everything here for free. (There are probably 10 such posts cropping up here everyday so yeah, authors are getting kinda annoyed. Everything related to coins, fastpasses, etc are available in the pinned messages.)
And moreover, my frustrations comes from the fact that people always complain about having to pay to read novels when more than 99.99% of the books in Webnovel Originals are free. Only a select few are contracted. If someone wants to read a good book but can't afford to pay, then they can gladly read the tens of thousands of free books. Some effort is required to search for the good books among them, but what's the fun if everything is handed over on a silver patter right?
It is also exhausting to see people complaining about having to pay to read for books for shiety grammar and how WN is full of them. Only generic popular books have such low level of writing and have become popular due to following the demand. I mean, have they ever seen my own book before stating such a claim? Moreover, there are also hundreds of books I know personally here in WN that have grammar on the level of traditiona style (though most of them are kinda unpopular since they don't follow the general trend). I won't go around claiming that my book has the best grammar or something, but it is at a level that I am not ashamed to admit it IRL that I have written it.
Tomoyuki Don't cheap books on Amazon with comparable lack of editing make a very good comparison against many of Webnovel's contracted works for price point though? If the argument is that the current price point is for encouragement to complete the novel, what is the argument for completed novels maintaining that price point?
MotivatedSloth I suppose that it may all be a part of the rounded math, but almost every ebook I've seen has a "preview" or "sneak peak" many of which contain 5-15% of the volume content for free. If we look at some of the more amateur work like Kindle exclusives, many provide the first book of longer series for free. While this does not change the math of this particular example very much, I would not have benchmarked against a 400 page $10 book. In this case, @Squish definitely should spend more on Webnovel and less on traditional publishing.
Are the royalties truly a quota share of profit and not revenue? That's honestly really concerning and yet you still don't think Qidian is exploitative? Do they provide expense reports along with your compensation? I mean hopefully things like shareholder dividends aren't included as an expense. It's not also only the portion above the (cumulative) minimum guarantee is it?