Webnovel.Forum

SylaRaven And how do you judge its unfair? So it was fair where you could get something that others had to spend between 5h to 30h (in really rough and possitive estimated) to write, daily for free? How's that fair? Hmm?

And you need to keep in mind one thing - WN is a buisness, not a charity. They could take all forms of free reading from everyone, and no1 would have any right to complain about it. So right now, you can either be patient and read 3 chapters a day while being gratefull that you are given that much for free, act like any normal person who wants entertainment and value its worth its price, by buying the coins and actually allowing the authors whose works you like to continue writing, or turn into the scum of reading society and read in pirate sites, often behind by at least a few chapters. Thats all the options you have.

MissZalasy
So you are a poor reader and you want to read more for free (yes, all the fastpass'es, be it from checking in, voting or the points acumulated, are considered free reading, because you don't have to pay a penny for it). What about the authors then? Compared to them, you want more of free entertainment, but for those who provide this entertaintment, if they won't get satisfactory amount, they will most likely drop.

Just like pirates doesn't realise that their actions will sooner or later lead to the dropping of the book they are pirating, so it will happen to any of the novels that will earn less that Author deems to be minimal in order for him to keep writing in the way he does.

MissZalasy

It's not. You either have some dignity and respect for the authors of the work you enjoy and either limit yourself to whats agreed upon to be free (fast passess) or you swallow the sour pill of the current prizes and get the coins. Thats the only real way to support the author, and I think that people doesn't realise that in order for the prices to go down, more people needs to start paying. Just like, if a buisness need 100$ monthly to survive, with 10 customers, each needs to pay at least 10$, but with 1000 customers, it goes down to 0.1$ per month.

Yoki_144

Yoki_144 they need to lower the price for fast passes and that they need to do something about the coins

So that the authors will get pissed off and drop the novels they are writing? Trust me mate, I used to be on authors discord for a long while, and while there are SOME authors who write because they love it and don't care about the money, most of them needs to consider their real lives as well. If you want to sacriface two hours DAILY just in order to write something where you have 50/50 chance to be thrashed by some kid readers... Then you are better off doing anything else that can at least turn out to be worth your time. WN isn't the only place that offers a way for the authors, but it most certainly do pick the genres. So well, if authors move somewhere else, they won't bring their stories with them, but start new ones, more suited for the market of the service they would move to.

Yoki_144 that makes me unable to finish the story or the novel whenever I want,

And thats the point. You get something for free because of the promotional aproach of WN, but if you want to entertain yourself freely with hard work of other people, you gotta pay. Thats how the world works.

Yoki_144 I don't mind supporting the outhers

As you claimed, you are a free reader, so by no real way you are supporting anyone. Even if votes are helpfull, while reviews/comments can be encouraging, they do not contribute to the author's livelyhood at all. ANd if you consider yourself to be worthy of giving worldending advices, then just hit the author up, most of them would love a great beta-reader or editor like you.

Atila00 single chapter are 11 coin.

Cost of the chapter is determined by its lenght, and actually, the longer the chapters, the better their price.

Basically, 200 words costs 1 coin. But its always rounded up. That means, that a chapter with 1000 words will costs 5 coins, while chappie with 1001 words will costs 6 coins. Thats why the longer the chapter the better, because this one incomplete coin is spread out on a greater amount of normal coins. But if you had a chapter costing you 11 coins, it only means it was between 2000-2200 words.

WHAT_NO_MONEY
You piece of sht, I saw this rant ages ago, and it still doesn't make almots any sense. At least have some guts and write something yourself, instead of spamming the abusive and insulting rant on the forum of the company you are trying to throw thrash at.

Well, I can't say that I don't wish to get more fast passes, but if you're super short on money, I would check Reddit's r/BeerMoney or r/BeerMoneyGlobal for a few bucks a month for low/no effort.

KoraL Just make a kofi stating you want to read books but you can't go to work (unless you are working, then welp....). There are bound to be some literature lovers. Nice idea.

MotivatedSloth I think that people doesn't realise that in order for the prices to go down, more people needs to start paying. Just like, if a buisness need 100$ monthly to survive, with 10 customers, each needs to pay at least 10$, but with 1000 customers, it goes down to 0.1$ per month.

This implies that if more people pay, that Webnovel will lower their prices. I highly doubt that.
The current price point really is quite high though especially considering that Webnovel caters to a world wide audience, not just the OCED Nations. For a substantial proportion of the global readers, one chapter costs more than a meal. Should writers care? Maybe. Should Webnovel care? Probably. You probably would rather not have them as readers.

KoraL

And thats the problem in itself. There is no way to balance the things properly. Thats actually the most valid point anyone brought so far in this forum in my presence. BUT:

Just like the cost for chapter for some readers might be high, the costs of living for the authors differs as well. While WN can't just put USA or Qatar people as their standard authors in order to tend their prices accordingly, there is a need for a middle ground.

Yes, for some people the chapters are too pricey. No, lowering the prices NOW won't make for any good change, because you probably don't understand how big percentage of the top novels would get suspended with their authors rioting.

So far, the balance is fragile, but it is here. If your novel does more or less nicely, you can earn a spare change. I'm lucky enough to live in a country, where this 400$ from MGS might not be much, but it allows me to pay for my bills and some basic living conditions. But what about the time in two months, when I will get my first pay purely from novel? For now, it seems to reach the point of 400$ by that time, but nothing is certain, so I'm not only busying myself with writing my contracted book and improving my craft, but also with editing my early chapters in order to not push the readers away right at the opening, all the while writing second novel in completly diffent theme (thats more suited to my passion) with the hopes of opening yet another contract with WN, all the while barely holding myself together with two 2yo and 4yo nephews ransacking the place I live at right now.

People who think that Authors earn too much and should earn less, probably don't understand that we in fact... do not earn barely enough to call it satisfactory. With my novel being around top70 last month and the earnings below 400$ so far... I could get thrice this amount by working as cashier and doing mindless work for 8 hours a day, instead of writing and making my head burn at times for 5 hours a day, WITH NO FREE DAYS AT ALL.

But we continue to do it because its our passion, and I think everyones have the hopes of reaching the place that would allow them to go full time. It's just, I live in Poland, so I have 5 times easier than authors from normal western countries. What about them, then?

MissZalasy i sympathize with you

Tomoyuki

KoraL

And ateveryoneelse

First thing first, thanks Tomo for great answer. I couldn't be bothered to write something as precise and on the point, because halfway through writing such a wall of text, I would get sidetracked and lost the main idea of the post.

And to everyone else - You know why I'm so against free readers?

Not because they are free at all. But let me paraprashe one saying here:

Not all free readers are pirates, but all pirates are free readers.

And seeing your book who doesn't do so good on the original site, being on the damned TOP 1 on one of the biggest pirate sites (yes, authors keeps a tabs on them way better than readers to) only makes me feel like all the
effort I input into writing so far, over 400k words, all I give to write a proper outline to guide me, all the events I planned for the comming chapters... Are all meaningless. Not only because people simply don't care about me - I have some readers that have enough brains to do EVERYTHING legally, just by exploiting WN system. Even if it means less money for me, it has its other benefits - but because they support the people that took a point to earn money from stealing hard work of others.

KoraL

And here, I will be directing myself to you in particual.

A few days ago, I actually went into a deep though about the possible changes if not complete overhaul of the payment system, that could prove to be beneficial for all sides.

BUT:

1st - as long as the exact informations are hidden, the system HAS TO remain simple. Right now, you as an author, can still somewhat guess your earnings, from the amount of subscribtions you are getting, the number of words in your chapter on average and all. BUT! If we want to expand the system to make it in a way that sucks way more money from everyone's pocket in much more pleasant and commonly accepted way... Then there needs to be a change in the company policy regarding the information. No author will agree to implement changes that would overall cloud their view on the situation.

2nd - Variety. Everyone comes to the WebNovel with diffrent mindset. Some wants to read loads of diffrent kinds of books, some just want to check the site out, some followed their beloved book being transferred here and can't care less about any other novel, some just want to read all sorts of isekaied RPG system harem smut novels. But that means, having one, unified currency and moneygrubbing system (yep, a pun from one of the more popular novels out here) means that there is only a small part of customers in the golden spot (where their needs and the WN offer align perfectly with the prices they are okay to offer).

Lets say for the argument sake, that we have 3 people. One needs to read one chapter a day, one needs to read 15 diffrent chapters from diffrent novels while one needs to read 10 chapters from a single story. That means, that in current situation, only one of the people will be able to be happy, because he can carter to his needs with just free pass alone. But what about this guys that reads oine chapter, but from fifteen books at one time? Should there be an offer that allows him to PAY for reading a bit of huge variety of books? Okay, that won't be a problem to implement! But what about the guy that wants to read ten chapters of a single story then? Yes, we can keep going and offer him diffrent promotion or service, but there are much much more types of readers out there. If we were to create an offer for each of them specifically... The system would become a clusterfck of diffrent offers, some most likely less expensive than others, giving way for various exploits and authors ranting about how everything was now unclear and hidden. In the end, unless everything is starkly outlined at present in the author's profile (even if its visible only for him), you can't implement changes that would turn the entire monetization system into a mess.

3rd - You know, I had the idea to introduce three types and three kinds and three sizes(?) of membership. Namely:
Types:
- Translation only - applies only to translated novel
- Oryginals only - same as above but to originals
- Comics? (THats something I didn't bother thinking at all about)
- All inclusive - applies to all novels outside of fanfics which are free anyway

Kinds:
Silver, gold and diamond membership, needs some explaining to do.

All novels on the site (with the separation beteween originals and translations) would be divided into three tiers, so that all tiers would bring overall the same amount of money. Just going with random numbers, 23 novels from the top would be in diamond belt, 241 novels below top 23 would be in the gold belt, while every other book would be in silver belt.
By buying silver membership, ytou get access to the silver book novels only. By buying gold, your membership only applies to gold belt books only, the same with diamond. For additional LOWER price, you could get bonus pass, that would allow you to buy the lower tier membership, for a fraction of its price.

Sizes:
Actually, the most important part.

There would be three types of sizes - standard one, where you just get 2 or 3 unlock all tokens, that allows you to read for free all the chapters from said one or two novels, and unlock all their future chapters for the time of your membership (with the exclusion of privledged chapters).

Advanced one, would allow you to read all the books from a single belt, (unless you expanded the size of membership)

and the premium one, allowing you to read both translations and originals at once.

THe main idea was to fight with the worse problem of the prevoius subscribtion service, where top authors suffered hit to the income, while authors at the bottom didn't really get anything out of it. So to fight it off, divice all the novels into three belts, so that each of the belst would earn equally as much, and one could better divide the income with the rule, the books on top are better so you pay more for less of them, books in the middle are a bit worse for reasons unknown (since well, they earn less, so there are less popular) but you have a greater choice, and the books at the bottom, are those from which you can try to find great pearls, for the cheapest price.

BUT

This idea has just as many flaws as it has pros. This post is way too long already, so there is no point in listing them out, but I want you to know, that I see more than two dozens of them, mosty of which are critical to the point, where without solving it, the entire system would be a bust. BUT ONCE AGAIN BUT:

The system above, could somehow lead to applicization of the wn app, with additions of bonus games.

You bought premium, ultra superduper membership? So you can spin our gatcha 777 times now! WOAH!

You b ought the most basic, standard, minimal, bronze membership? Dont worry, try spinning our gatcha 7 times!

Oh! You didn't get the price you were aiming for? You still want those free 50 chapters from any given book? Look! You can buy next 10 gatcha spins for only a single $!

There are so many great examples at monetisation of the stuff out there, why not make us of it?

And yeah. Points are trash. Dont even bother.

KoraL

I was going with my diea towards the model of most of the apps, where you can introduce all sorts of stuff of lotery like inventions, that are great at sucking the money. Everyone loves it, so its an easy way to increase the revenue.

As for your proposal - it would never go through. Why someone should pay 2$ to read novel with 100 chapters locked while he could use it to read novel with 2000 chapters?

And well, that would give everyone access to something WAY MORE EXPENSIVE than this 2$ or even 10$. What I though about when reading your post is below:

Catch Up pass - unlock specifically for a single novel alone, allows you to buy all its current premium chapters (outside of priveledge and let's say, most recent daily release) for 50% of price, but it can only be used if you never got this tokenon said novel.
Daily Update pass - unlocks all daily chapters for a month, for 75% of estimated total cost of the chapters (something like privledge, if novel has 2chaps/day, it will unlock 2 chaps per day for you, but if author does mass release, you would've to catch up with those bonus chappies by yourself.

Overall, I think this is better proposal, because 1 - the price depeneds on the amount of work someone had to put in order to get his current amount of locked chapters, 2 - limited time reading will never work, because varoius people have varoius reading speed and lets be serious - you can't properly calculate the average cost of the entire premium novel on the site, with how some have 1k chapters while some have 50.

I do also want to point out, that at one point, Webnovel thought that <$1 per day was a fair price. They had to have considered the existing epic length sagas in this. I think it would have been fine had they restricted the number of novels people could read with it each month. Like add up to 5/10 novels to the subscription and you can change them each month when the subscription renewed instead of free range everything goes, read 50 ongoing novels and skim 10 epic length completed novels. Allow authors to opt out of subscription if that's more palatable.

MissZalasy I also think we should start atleast getting coins from daily challenges because if we're not getting more free passes atleast we would be gaining more coins so that we'll have a chance to purchase more chapters from comics and novels that have paid chapters.

Demonic_Mori_Jin how about 250 points per coin? I think that would be pretty fair for Webnovel.
I am just glad they haven't changed the free fast passes you get from check in, PS, and ES into points that need to be converted into a piddlier number of fast passes.

KoraL Yes, I think something along the lines you suggest would work. WebNovel needs to do something for the already completed novels or ongoing novels with a thousand or more premium chapters. People just aren't going to commit the hundreds of dollars necessary for reading them.

I think the current WebNovel scheme works well for keeping up with ongoing chapters. With the current membership plus $5-$10 top-ups/month I can keep up with 4 active novels (2-3 chapters per day each). I'm willing to pay that premium for works in progress.

KoraL, have you looked at wuxiaworld's VIP program? They are one of the few other non-pirate sites out there. I subscribed to their Gold-level VIP program last week, which enables me to read chapters from 3 completed novels of my choice (I can choose novels the first of every month, either continue on with the current ones or switch) for $10/month. (Silver level is read chapters from one completed novel per month). They have separate mechanisms for funding their ongoing and completed novels. I think something similar would work here as well.

MotivatedSloth I’m not a free reader, I purchase privlaged chapters and never read on pirate sites. I wish authors would link to outside sources for payment more often. I doubt they’re even seeing a fraction of the money I spend on their stuff. I would rather support them directly.

CrispyCritter I wouldn't know, since I don't read on WxW. I had always thought they operated on a combination of ad revenue and patreon/privilege