has anyone run the number to see what the spirit stone cost would be to read an entire novel? I know that some of these novels can get over 1k and 2k long. I'm not sure how viable it would be to spend even 5 to 12 stone per chapter to read 1000s of chapters. Not to mention I believe most people are reading multiple novels and the premium books are going to generally be the most popular. i figure if i pay the 10 bucks today and get the 1500 stone thats 10/1500=.0066$ per stone. Then i multiply that by the 12 stones i just "spent" on the last released chapter .006612=.08 per new chapter. If this novel goes for another 1000 chapters (1000.08=80). And this is just for one story i won't be able to read more than one at this rate. I have no problem paying for a quality story. i like getting entertained. but i don't pay $80 dollars for any series. Harry Potter doesn't cost 80 bucks to read.

In cunclusion while i don't mind paying for quality and entertainment, I think the current system is a little excessive and needs to be adjusted down to make the novels more appropraitly cost effective. I think there are smart accountants and statisticians that can figure out i good spread of dollars and value to increase exposure , drive site traffic, provide income for translaters, and provide and solid value for customers. Thanks i welcome clearification for my ignorance and look forward to the respose.

Steve

    I could not pay and wait but how does that help translators and Webnovel.com? Is there not a middle ground? Was the cost of stones over the course of an entire novel taken into consideration? If i'm not wrong its going to be too expensive to read more than one or two stories and they will lose readers to other sites and other novels. With kindles and Amazon and all the other types of entertainment, they are competing with i think they need to reconsider there price point.

      For comparison, an average chapter in qidian China is about 2k words.

      It costs 8-12 emm "China stones"

      100 of such "China stones" costs 1rmb, around 0.16usd

      So 1 chapter costs around 0.019 USD assuming you need to pay 12 "China stones"
      2k chapters costs around 38usd.

      I believe translators get maybe 20% and authors around 10%.

      Go figure how much money international qidian is making from this.

      Sailorman08 Hi there, 1000 average 2k-word-count chapters will be 2M words - which can be split into 20 usual books. 80/20=4 for each book.

      It's really tough to say whether the price is set too high or not because it really depends on your income and cost of living. That's why we always give you free SS to keep up-to-date with your favorite titles plus the Premium for Free program. I have nothing to say if some people are complaining and asking to be kept up-to-date with 20+ premium titles for free on a daily basis.

          Sailorman08
          WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL

          Let's do some math.
          If we assume for a novel with an average cost of each chapter around 10 SS, and the cost of 1500 SS is 10$, then for 10$ you get 150 chapter or ~7 cents/chapter. (assuming you use your bonus SS before it expired)
          but, it only last until March 11th.

          WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL As many of you remember, we introduced a limited time offer that gave early birds up to 200% bonus Spirit Stones added onto every purchase. This amazing promotion will end this Sunday (March 11th). We greatly appreciate your support and hope all of you will grab this opportunity of getting more bang for your buck.

          So after March 11th, the cost would triple. Which is 30$ for 150 chapter, or 20 cents/chapter. Now for a completed book, lets make an example of Library of heaven path, the original chapter count is around 1100, now we are on 606, it's around 500 chapter to unlock. 500 x 20 cents= 10.000 cents = 100$.

          So it's around 100$ just to catch up to the original chapter counts of LOHP right now (500 chapter). (my math might be wrong because the SS cost may differ).

          And this is not a completed novel, it's just catching up to the currently updated novel, and the original chapter count would keep increasing each day.
          And this is just for 1 novel damn it. Even the whole collection of Harry Potter books (paperback ones) didn't cost this much.
          Imagine reading 10 premium novel, you could get a new phone.

                  GregLuck exactly. The only reason why qidian is successful in China is simply because their chapters are cheap enough to be afforded by a majority of the users.

                  If the same is done here like all chapters of LotHP for 20 bucks, I believe we won't see such a big hoo ha here

                    So to fix WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL 's math with the updated numbers, it would be 200/20= 10 dollars per 100k word book, and these are chinese web novels, so probably only 60-65k words of actual content, at best. 10 buck novellas coming right up!
                    25 chapters for 10 bucks, hell that's less than an hour of reading, 80+ bucks for a full day of reading, once the chapter count is built up.

                    And what people really want, is a paid subscription service/month as if you have 20-30 favorite novels you could easily spend 300+ bucks a month no problem, which only a rare few will do. I know I'll be dropping many novels once they're all premium.

                      Go check the comments on every LOHP chapter now, this whole Premium thing ain't working.. it will end up failing.
                      99% of the comments are people complaining about this horrible service, but somehow Qidian just doesn't see it yet, and this "Well you can still read it for free", well sure "I won't pay", so you basically did nothing, literally nothing.
                      But nah you actually achieved something, pissing off everyone on this website, killing your popularity, i don't know how that strategy works, how does that make money? when people just stop reading anything on this website?!?
                      Again for the last time, come up with something better than this, you should appreciate all these people trying hard to convince you not to go down this road, but you only keep on going...........

                      Sailorman08

                      Considering the Release rate at 2 Chapter oer day and considering 100 extra Chapter we get 365*2+100= 830 Chapter a year

                      So a novel would finish in 1.5 years to 2 years

                      So u pay 80$ one time for 1.5 to 2 years fun....

                      But indeed it is costly if u read too many novels....
                      Haha

                          WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL So let's say that I am buying 20 novellas for 4 bucks each. Okay, that sounds like a reasonable price for novellas, although I usually try not to spend more than 3 each. However, these are usually finished novellas that I can read as a 100k word section without clicking unlock every 2k words, and I don't have any ads. Whereas here, I have the pleasure of being able to spend 4 bucks over the course of several months being forced to hang off cliffs every day and seeing ads for things I don't care about.

                          Why don't you go with a subscription model? About $10 a month (approx $0.3-$0.35 per day... Eh? That's like 4/5 chapters a day. So each premium novel makes Qi approx $7 per month per reader!?)
                          Umm... wow... how about subscription can bypass the unlock for all but the last 2 chapters which need to be unlocked with SS which subscribers can still get through daily check-ins and whatnot. Then tack on ad-free subscription for an extra $2 or something.
                          If the issue is dividing out the money to the relevant parties afterward, can't you use the library history information, to find which novels they accessed in the past month, their current last chapter read in the novel, and novel release statistics to figure out how many locked chapters they were able to bypass using their subscription?

                              WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL I've mentioned this elsewhere, my main concern is that free chapters are no longer released to people who "purchase" advance chapters. If we could buy advance chapters without having the free daily release removed from that novel (from the user's perspective) then I think the system is as close to perfect as could be achieved. Price could be argued but that is going to vary based on the number of purchased chapters.

                                  APassingMe I don't know if that would drive overall revenue up or down, I don't have any solid idea of what the users would do under either situation.

                                  I feel like my personal spending would probably go up if I could subscribe to multiple novels without wasting free releases.

                                    I think for me the ideal would be something like this.

                                    First 50 Chapters of all novels are free with no ads...
                                    Every Chapter after 50 would have an add with no unlock option. Watch the ad all the way through to read the chapter.
                                    5-10 dollar a month Site subscription to remove all ads from chapters for easy reading.
                                    5 allows a limited add skip
                                    10 has no ads at all.
                                    I think translators should probably be on a salary/chapter with a bonus structure being paid out to the authors based on reader popularity discussion and quality of chapters.

                                    Part of my issue with the spirit stones i think is that its one more thing for me to look at and keep track of. So everyday i'm thinking about the cost of reading todays chapters. If i'm paying 5 to 10 a month then i'm not thinking about it. i pay 10 a month for kindle unlimited and i'm sure i don't use a 10 value each month. i don't know who is running this site but i'm pretty sure they aren't business or marketing people. A subscription would remove the cost from the front of my mind allowing me to enjoy the reading.

                                    Again i have no problem trading a monetary amount for quality entertainment. but like most people i want a value and not a hassle. Translated novels is growing in popularity in the US and around the world and webnovel has some of the best. If they don't get this right they will lose out the most in the future.

                                    good luck webnovel,

                                    steve

                                      WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL Well, that logic is indeed correct in principle, but books like Harry Potter or Dark Tower generally don't have so much filler and repetition in them. Now, it is a fact that you have a system that gives incentive for authors to write longer chapters more than quality ones, but longer doesn't always mean better. Ofc, one can argue that what is percieved as 'filler' can change from person to person, but in general, most people have the same idea about what 'filler' content is and most people don't enjoy reading 'filler'... So i can argue that, to me and the majority of the people, an avarage book has the same ammount of 'actual content' as a 1000 chapter xianxia web novel... Sometimes filler goes out of control so bad, you can summerize a 2000 word chapter into 100 word and still get the same information you got out of that chapter, minus the fraustration of reading all that useless stuff and repetitive content...

                                          Klepar We will develop a discount system that would apply even for the purchasing of a single chapter.

                                              KoraL Typing by phone and I can't even remember all your longer questions. Anyway, let me try explaining. For the premium system, it sells FRESHNESS rather than chapters. If you wish to compare it with a completed novels, our novels will be ultimately be free after a certain period but kindle ebooks will still cost you whatever they charge you for (maybe lesser but they aren't free).

                                              Another question you asked is why is the price higher than a perfectly translated and professionally edited ebook. Firstly, I have answered the price question above - our novels will ultimately be free but those DECENT novels won't. (Maybe free 50 years later when they become public domain)

                                              Secondly, I believe stories provide you with entertainment than random bullshit, right? You like the story and you want to know what's going to happen next, so you end up paying for the entertainment. If our novels provide more entertainment than other books, then people are going to buy them. If other books are more attractive, then please let me know and I will buy them ASAP. Pricing is all about basic economics - demand and supply. Greater demand brings greater price, vice-versa. I could reorganize the question again in another direction - Why does a popcorn movie make greater revenue than a classic drama? Why are Naruto comic books not sold for free?
                                              A Tale of Two Cities ebook costs nothing on Amazon! Well, the world doesn't work like that.

                                              Oh, you also talked about business model issues. To be honest, we appreciate if you guys can give your business model suggestions but I believe email is a better way to leaving your 2 cents; at least, it is better than arguing on the forum...

                                              In addition, I'm not sure if you would be surprised to hear that Amazon is really interested in our Premium model. I guess many of you don't know that we are a strategic partner of Amazon. We share suggestions all the time but it's really tough to just directly change your business model which has been proven to succeed in the past. That's why we prefer to test our Premium model, and Amazon keeps their business model. But yes, both of us are interested in any potential business models and wish to try fresh things in some cases.

                                              Many of you suggested a subscription model which we have tried in the Chinese market. It was doing okay but not that good, at least worse than our current model, based on our domestic market experiences. It could be wrong in the global context but we need to run something we are more familiar with and have confidence in. We have never said that we won't try other methods in the future. That's a normal strategy which our business will practice moving forward.

                                              All in all, thanks for your support and I hope you guys have a nice weekend. Last word, stop arguing and go read the new series - at least those are free reads!

                                                  APassingMe I suppose that you are asking for 1 free chapters pool on ur account, and u can decide which novel and which chapter you want to unlock, are you? Anything different from current bonus SS system?

                                                      Sailorman08 I won't say we will refuse to implement the subscription model forever. We have actually tried it in China, but honestly, it only worked so-so. We are still in the early stages in terms of the business model development. It's possible we implement the subscription option one day but it might not work like Amazon Kindle's model.

                                                          N0xiety I'm not saying that you are wrong. Actually it's a problem. However, we do believe that the market will teach authors who write up repetitive stories a lesson. In the long run, lazy or unqualified authors will be less popular than the real geniuses. If they realize that fewer people follow their works, then they will lose revenues if they don't improve soon. The quality is really a matter of skill rather than how the system designs in the long term.

                                                              TargetPractice1 I doubt you know how much traffic has been lost by us, right? But I do know how much traffic we receive and lose everyday. There is a platform called App Annie which can be used to track the traffic. :)

                                                                  WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL I'm having a hard time describing it, but the idea is that a user could purchase a premium chapter (only one, two or more; up to the user) and still get the weeks free releases for that novel without reducing the number by those that they purchased. I could write the code for the implementation easier then I can explain it... but instead of purchasing a single chapter, they are purchasing an advance chapter which pushes them ahead of the free release by one without overlapping.

                                                                  If a user purchases 2 chapters from a Premium novel then combined with the free release they would receive a total of 9 chapters that could be read that week, (2+7). This would also remove the forced purchase of just a few novel's premium chapters since we could skip around and purchase from different novels without subtracting from the free releases that could be read. It would reduce the number of premium chapters that would be purchased per novel but would probably increase overall purchases.

                                                                  Currently, purchasers of advance chapters don't receive any free chapters from a novel that they "subscribe" to unless the number of chapters purchased is lower than the number of free releases (I hope that makes sense). If we compare it to the earlier example of someone who bought 2 advance chapters then they currently get a total of 7 chapters for that week, which includes the purchased ones, as the free chapters have to "catch up" to the user.

                                                                  If someone else can help me describe this better, than please do so. I'm horrible at communication!

                                                                    Hmm, I think I just realized a problem with my suggestion... provided that the number of Premium and free releases are equal then that severely limits the number of purchasable chapters... to the total number of chapters released in a week. That would have to be accounted for somehow... Anyway, the theory was to remove some of the negative limitations of purchasing only one or two chapters. So the readers could do more picking and choosing of what to support per week without feeling that they wasted their time. Anything that fulfills that purpose is fine, my original plan probably won't work with some of the novels due to the current numbers being released weekly.

                                                                    I don't really want to suggest reducing the number of free chapters to make my original plan work...

                                                                      WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL you are just encouraging the authors writing fillers since the premium base on words count while a refined story need to reduce unnecessary words.if the market really works there shouldn't have been so many repetive stories.Why do you just want to do business rather than think about providing better service and a better user experience?stop encouraging this trend please really annoying.You should punish those trash authors severely and never recommend their works.

                                                                          WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL Thank you for responding and clarifying your stance.

                                                                          Why is direct email preferable to suggestions on the forum? When readers are able to debate the pros and cons of something, we're collaborating to improve the suggestions.

                                                                          Have you looked into Tapas' business model? On some of their offerings, they have locked chapters which are unlocked using novel/comic specific keys. These keys can be bought using the app currency which can be bought for real money. They can also be obtained by starting a timer for that novel/comic.

                                                                              KoraL From your description, I can't tell how it is different from the current system, can you expand on that?

                                                                                  APassingMe The key difference is the timer for keys. It means that those who purchase premium chapters can get a free chapters by using free keys instead of the current communal free chapter.

                                                                                  Actually, the current Tapas system is much more brutal than Qi's since they don't have communal free chapters on series with locks.
                                                                                  The current system is much more similar to how Radish operates.

                                                                                      WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL well, you cannot compare the chinese market with the international market, those are worlds apart, but I can understand that you wanna begin with a model you are used to.

                                                                                      And honestly, Amazon's interest in your premium model doesn't mean anything at all. Big companies invest money and time in everything that could turn into profit. Just have a look at all those promising open source frameworks & technologies, each supported/in cooperation or sponsored by dozens or even hundreds of companies. If you got the money and manpower, it's just plausible to invest in something that could turn out profitable...

                                                                                      But about the repetitions and how the market will teach those authors: you realize that your chapterwise release model is the cause of it, so why not think of a solution there instead of hoping for one in something as uncertain as the market? The international community is probably not big enough yet for such a task. Just have a look at the current novels, the ones that are already finished get no attention at all, everyone just focuses on the newly translated ones. The update rate is also different for every novel, which can heavily influence the popularity of novels. And I don't know whether the chinese reader community dislikes repetitions and fillers as much as western readers when I look at all those asian grinder games 😅

                                                                                        I don't know how much money you are making off this, but I do know you have an opportunity cost. You lost about 3-4 ad views a day from me alone, as I dropped every novel I read that went premium.

                                                                                        The current system punishes avid fans (sells "freshness") and rewards casual readers that can postpone reading to wait for free chapters.

                                                                                        What does Qi want? They want the "whales", that just like in video games in-app-purchases, consist of most of the revenue.

                                                                                        WEBNOVEL_OFFICIAL
                                                                                        I'd like you to check out some magic chapters.

                                                                                        https://m.qidian.com/book/3258971/375942083
                                                                                        This chapter flips over and over again and again and again, and it seems that a chapter is all about copying and pasting itself. The market may give some authors a lesson to cut back on their income, but the chapter is still out, because the author knows that the benefits outweigh the risks.

                                                                                        https://m.qidian.com/book/1004608738/396552786
                                                                                        Look at this another chapter, this is your top novel in the rank list, in order to complete the number of words , he writes so bad just like a kid student in a primary school.you also recommend him to the top of your rank list, this is not bad atmosphere is what?

                                                                                        The market is not omnipotent, the market has blindness, what you need to do as a content provider is not try to improve the quality of content?

                                                                                            Confucious If the market determines it's good, what can the publisher do? Censor the author for selling well?

                                                                                                Tonufan123 It's a little inaccurate since a huge number of readers use the apps. If you check on Google's Playstore, it has more than a million downloads already. Even if many of the installs are by the same user on multiple devices, that is still a sizable number of users that aren't captured by such web metrics.

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