Hi everyone,
Can anyone walk me through the contract procedure in webnovel?
let's just say webnovel wants to contract my work
1. How do they contact me?
2. How do I receive the contract? (through what email?)
3. What are the requirements I need before signing a contract?
4. How do I sign the contract? (is it like printing it out and signing followed by scanning it and sending it back?)
5. What happens after I sign the contract?

I have zero knowledge about the contract and stuff so it's possible that even my questions are wrong but i hope someone explains it to me and this post will be like a guide to new authors like me.

Thanks in advance. STAY SAFE

    don_offl
    Hi! As someone who just got an offer (yeah I'm low key bragging), I can answer a few questions now.
    1. They contact you via email. You should get two emails I think, one that says they offer you a contract and the other is from your potential content editor (that's the one who you can ask a bunch of questions to, they're really nice, very happy to answer and they should have read your work already)
    2. If they offer you the contract you go to inkstone (the create button on the site) and there will be a pop up saying they've offered you a contract where you can choose to sign or ignore. If you cancel out of that pop up there should be a contract button somewhere anyway.
    3. Do you mean how to fulfil the requirements to get considered for a contractor? I think there's a word minimum before they'll look you up, plus popularity and such. In terms of chapter frequency, you don't need to write 7 chapters a week or anything, the point is that it's pretty consistent I think (I usually push out only 2-3 chapters lol). Also I think you have to get a ranking at some point? I don't really know much for this one.
    4. First, you fill in some info (name/ some form of ID/ bank stuff) and then I do think you need to print it out and sign before scanning it back to them (not up to the printing part yet but it looks like it. I mean, it definitely needs your signature).
    5. From what I understand once signed you automatically get the gift function to your story. Locking chapters and doing the premium thing is a secondary step you can take when you're ready. There isn't a minimum chapter frequency or anything but if you push out a chapter a day with minimum 1,500 words for a month you'll get a bonus of 200$ (The Minimum Guarantee System). This is not a compulsory thing but, like, it is $200. You'll only get 50% profits and they'll help you with distribution and advertising etc.
    The story will have your name on it but essentially Webnovel owns it with the contract. If you drop your story after it's contracted Webnovel has the right to hire someone to finish the story you dropped. Also if your story has like child porn or something equally not cool the content editor will tell you to drop it. If you refuse to drop it then I think that breaches the contract etc. If you write a sequel, it is not part of the contract but they hope that if you get offered multiple contracts for the sequel you'll considers Webnovel's first.

    Um, I think that's the general stuff? Hope that helps.

        LittleBlueLake
        don_offl
        as far as I am informed...
        you can release novels that play in the same universe only here from then on...
        For example you wrote Harry Potter
        then you could only publish fantastic beast on webnovel.
        how they reach out to you... there are different ways it seems...
        they reached out to me through the comment section of my novel.
        he told me to add him on discord...
        I had to summarize my novel to the editor and he handed my novel to another editor after that.
        He didn't read any chapter of my novel!
        I am waiting up to today for that editor to contact me...
        The first editor told me when I asked when that other one would call me that that would be up to him. I don't know that persons name or anything and have no way to contact him. I somehow feel really badly treated...
        I never asked them for a contract but I took an hour of my time to write with that editor and then that is how they react... not fair! I feel somehow disrespected and thought because of that reason about leaving this platform... what makes me somehow really sad because I put a lot of time into this...
        I think it was 3 days ago that they first contacted me...
        I believe the first editor looked only at my stats and didn't really read my story.
        I have to say, the fact that he handed me over to someone else appeared a little as if...
        we don't want to contract him but we fear telling him and so we let him wait until he loses interest...
        I didn't even get a contract send so that I could look up if that would be interesting for me or anything like that...

        I am thinking now for a long time about the question if I would take the contract or not and more and more I get the feeling through Webnovel that it might not be a good idea. I don't really feel treated well and I fear the payment...
        You will get 4 month 200$ each month! but other authors told me that many of them after those 4 month only reached an income of 10$ each month... If you relate that to the work you have to put into that whole thing, it wouldn't really be worse the hassle to fulfill a contract and loose all your rights on the novel.
        That is btw. my real concern not the money. I don't want to lose the rights for my characters and story because I am a programer and want to create a small indie game later on from it...
        Why I would still consider signing a contract is only based on the fact that I am part of the spirity award and you can only win the big prizes if you are contracted.
        And since webnovel can pretty much decide, who wins however they want, I think it is unlikely they will give anyone a relevant prize, who is not contracted. And that makes total sense!

        Not supposed to be a hate post or anything but maybe to all editors reading this...
        Next time think about the outer appearance if you reach out to other people.
        It is not only we, who want a contract!
        It is you guys, who need original authors to grow webnovel even bigger.
        We authors have many places to release our novels.

        An advice if you want to take the contract.
        1. join spirity award (chance to get advertised and money... furthermore you can be part of the lists with the other novels)

        1. if you want to live from it you should be able to write 14 chaps/week and even that is most likely not enough! Depends all on your novel and your ranking! You need to be better than the translated works.
          If you want to earn more money I think it makes sense to produce more than 14 chaps... 2 chaps free read every day... so if the reader wants to keep up he has to buy or he falls back... the question is if your views won't drop like that?!?

        2. advertise your novel not only in the forum. Look at the author from Roleplayer. He basically wrote a fanfic of "the gamer", posted a link in the "the gamer" section on reddit and right now, he has around 60k views with only 12 chaps!
          I have 19 released chapters and only a third! Without any kind of advertisment on other websites... I got recommended by webnovel as new original. The effect was as far as I see it minimal... The placement was extremly small and hard to find... and if I look at the other works that were advertised there it was the same for them.
          So if you pick a theme... think of ways how you can advertise that theme online without paying money ofcourse.

              MaxwellKHA They're kind so don't worry too much about it.

              ...I'm not sure about this. Rather, I am aware that there are a lot of politics and factional disputes in the Inkstone Discord.

              Hell, one of the first advice I received when entering the Inkstone Discord as a new writer was "you only have x number of power stones after y number of chapters? You should give up on your story and write a new one instead." Perhaps people will claim that it's pragmatic or realistic advice, but it certainly isn't "kind."

              Oh. And best of all. "You're not a top 50 author, what makes you think you are in any position to give writing advice to others?"

                  Yuyumamoru Yeah. Just warning that you're going to run into such individuals, and that they are not necessarily as kind as MaxwellKHA makes it out to be...

                  The whole politics and factional thing just makes my head hurt.

                      For the note - Any internal strife realistically applies only to contracted locked channel on the discord. I guess Tomo had either a bad luck, or rather than helping someone with writing, was trying to help with writing in marketing terms on webnovel. I - for the change - received quite a lot of help that improved both my writing and marketing approach a lot

                        Tomoyuki synopses and story structure,

                        Mate, I do not wish to tell you that you are bad at writing or anything even remotely close to that. You know I looked up your creations and were quite impressed by them.

                        But there is a fact that WN has its own way of writing. Something that might work in traditional publishing, is not necessarily the best thing fo the new authors (since they were asking for advice) to use if they want to become popular here.

                            MotivatedSloth That's fair, but there's a difference between being told "your advice is not appropriate because it works only in traditional publishing and not webnovels" and "you have no right to offer any advice when you're not even ranked among the top 50!"

                            Also, thanks for the compliment. I wish I could write better, so I appreciate it.

                              SuperSilentSin
                              SuperSilentSin has a very different experience than me tbh I'm frankly shocked at the difference. I was emailed by a content editor who told me that they were super intrigued with my work (insert praise) and I assumed that, well, they were lying because my story is shady at but no, she assured me she read it and enjoyed it and we even talked a bit about my characters for a bit which made me trust that she wasn't lying to me, or if she was then she at least did her homework ya know? She also gave me a contract guide to help me fill in the contract should I choose to do it, like it was super nice. Maybe it's the difference in content editor genres? She said she was more with the LGBT+ genre which is smaller than the other genres and therefore a little less competitive? I don't know.

                              Plus I was assured that any sequel and such that I made would not count as part of the contract, only the story in question. However, if I get offered multiple contracts for said sequel they want me to consider Webnovel first.

                              Honestly, webnovel's contract is definitely not one if you want fortune I agree, but it seems like a good place to start and get your foot into the writing world in my opinion haha. I'm a lazy person so I'm pretty happy being a ricebug and just focus on writing and not worry about other things like distribution and such. Even though I lose a lot of rights my name is still on the story and I can still say it's mine plus the editor tells me that as long as I don't cross any serious lines in my writing I can write whatever content I want haha.

                                  LittleBlueLake the editor called out to me again... and assured me that he read my story and that the other editor would call me back and by now he did that already...
                                  I guess he was just in a hurry that day or something, don't know. Possible that it was already extremly late at his place when I reached out to him...
                                  If this was just a misunderstanding then I am sorry!
                                  I just want to remind Webnovel that this kind of misunderstanding can only arise because it is really hard for us users/authors to understand what you guys are doing. I wrote this many times before... and I wll repeat it here again.
                                  Pls, deal with everything with a little bit more transparency.
                                  Create and define goals authors/novels have to reach to get contracted!
                                  In the first place, I for example didn't believe someone like me could even get contracted! And I think many people don't start writing because this thought demoralizes them by a lot.
                                  Right now I don't even have 10 reviews, because I don't want reviews through review swap. I want people to write those, who are really interested in my novel and don't give me random good words in hope I repay them with a good review as well. Like that you won't see the true opinion of your readers. Though, whoever is okay with it can ofcourse do review swaps... You have to decide that for yourself...
                                  I am just saying it is easier than I thought for the editors to reach out to you.

                                    2 months later

                                    okay so i am pretty young, i’m a minor. and i was offered a contract through wattpad. the editor claimed he had read my story. this is what he said:
                                    “hello (username),

                                    My name is QianYu. I’m an author liaison representative, representing TencentLiterature.

                                    I’ve read the initial chapters and i feel that your novel showcases your abilities as a writer thus, I would like to invite you to publish on our platform W e b n o v e l. You may find our app on the App Store or Google Play, which has over tens of millions of installations.

                                    We would like to offer you a non-exclusive contract for your novels currently on this site, this way, you can keep the novels on a site but at the same time also help you tap on a large reader base of over 60 million unique user views, making it a win-win situation.”

                                    and then he gave me a bunch of of emails and websites where i can contact him. i need someone to tell me if this is legit or if they just send that to everyone. i had literally posted like seven chapters of a story that was not my best and i was sent that. so please someone help me out here.

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