i checked the ranking a couple of months ago and i noticed novels focused on romance are climbing the ranks and now it's almost everywhere in the top 100 .
i was never interested in romance and i avoid those kind of novels because i don't find joy in reading and now am wondering how long this trend will keep going ..
i hope it ends soon cause the more attraction this genre gets the less focus the genres i like receives which translates to less support >:
i felt this for a while but eastern and fantasy novels rly did meet a bottleneck .
it's late here so am just ranting and am just curious what people think , too lazy to reply so discuss it amongst yourselves i love reading comments while sitting on a fence :>
why is romance taking over ?
FastingDragon I’m not a fan of romance so I’m kind of agreeing with you on this.
- Edited
Sheer production. Romances are produced faster.
and most of the reader is female
Its more popular.
They brought over a lot of Wattpad authors, so it's going to start looking rather similar soon...
yeah :cry: :cry: :cry:
wattpad shucks with all those harry potter x malfoy BL, those werewolves alpha thingies, etc
- Edited
And, in groups for writers, there's a lot of ads for people interested in taking part in paid teams dedicated solely to write romances for the web... Werewolf erotica, vampire, ABO, CEO stories, the most popular romantic tropes nowadays.
It seems it earns money enough to get teams involved in its mass production...
I've never seen a single ad searching writers for cultivation novels, though...
Majority of the people reading novels are females. Romance is their preferred genre.
- Edited
I'm going, to be honest. I enjoy some romance novels, but most aren't that good. I'm not too fond of the ML who abuses or is a bully to the FL. Especially if the ML won't change, it's so frustrating when I read a novel like that. I don't understand why books like that get so much attention. There are so few good romance novels, which is infuriating. That's my opinion, and I'm trying not to be mean to those people with those types of Romance Novels.
- Edited
Midnight_Alpha
I have a completed novel... the story revolves around the Male Lead who is loving and so in love with the female Lead. But the Female Lead keep running away and so he has to keep chasing her just to prove that his love is true...the readers ended up hating the girl and taking pity of the Male Lead.
Every story has a different twist and different flavor.
Because every author has different mindset.
Because majority readers are females. And yeah, it's really hard to write martial art in this bulk of romances (atleast in my country server).
Midnight_Alpha That sound about like 98% of every chinese story with a female lead. Good luck finding that 2%.
I am forced to agree too lol.
I was informed by system that my story is eligible for Best Original and even Feature for a Week. But in the end it was not picked because Eastern Fantasy never got picked. The only eastern fantasy that got pick is the inhouse translators lol...other than that, yes, it is all romance and FL.
Basically, if your story is a ML, sorry to tell you. It will almost never featured because ML sucks lol. It does not need to be a romance. No ML will ever get feature:X
if i had to sum it up it's becoming a fast food chain of novels
i guess alot of people like romance :/
but i mean i also do like romance but it mostly depends on whats happining in the book
Because romance readers in particular are obsessive and go through novels quickly, meaning they buy a lot of coins and make Webnovel very happy.
The featured are all FL. Overtime, all the male readers no longer open their apps to check the features anymore:X
So it end up with females readers only. It not becos majority readers are females. Males have no motivation to click anything...
Good job webnovel lol...
- Edited
Although I write romance, I think the features and spotlight should be more balanced. Also, they really should carefully consider what they are promoting, since they show no care picking books with no punctuation whatsoever as banners.
The last strategy of translating books which are not living up the expectations and being dropped is what is making male readers leave Webnovel, if they really do.
Also, female readers are less picky and don't mind 'short books' (like, when a eastern fantasy can get 1500 chapters a romance author wrote 5 books of 300 chapters each).
And when the female readers don't like a book, they don't complain, they just leave silently and go to another. So the bad writers keep producing and producing happily.
Hence the disparity.
Yes, I actually agree that female readers dont mind shorter chapters work. But at the same time, the female writers sometimes their 300 chapters = 1500 chapters for the female writers. So the length is pretty much the same.
I feel that many of the eastern fantasy side are horribly rushed and short too...it more like junk food lol.
Avidfan I believe they are trying to rush to supply readers, but the readers aren't happy with the decrease in quality and don't invest in buying chapters, so they drop the novels, and go in search of new rushed written novels to supply readers, ... Yu get the point.
Also, at the same time, even the quantity of novels offered scatters the earnings and the novels don't earn the same as before, and therefore are dropped, etc etc.
In my view, Webnovel isn't the place for niche, experimental, action, non romantic and complex stories. An example is if you're after an action story like John Wicks don't expect it to exist here unless it's niche and buried or written to a WN trope. Its catalog is targeted for the light novel reader. Especially with a romance focus. It's the kind of paying readership the site attracts.
Wattpad and all other similar charging sites are the same. Although I think Tapas.io has a strong following for non romantic stuff.
At first, the burger was homemade in a small bistro in a small town. Then people started to enjoy the taste and convenience. Then, someone bought the bistro - commercialized it and made a big giant fast-food burger chain in the whole world. The traditionally made burger is no longer the same again. Then the delicious homemade burger becomes what so-called junk food.
The same thing with the romance novel genre these days.
More than ten years ago, reading transmigration novels such as A Step Into the Past by Huang Yi, or Scarlet Heart by Tong Hua is really awesome and engrossing. But then, right now almost 70% of what so-called 'historical fiction' or 'historical romance' or ancient genre, have this transmigration theme. It's too much and for some people (at least for me) and it becomes junk-food that I don't even bother to check anymore.
The CEO romance was awesome in the beginning. But then it becomes too much. People love to buy dreams. A cool handsome, smart, young, rich CEO - is all girls' dream. Just like junk-food, there's a HUGE demand for it. But for some people, this CEO things could be really something that make them throw up - especially if in real life it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to see cool, handsome, smart, young, rich CEO. LOL
Sad to say, but ROMANCE is the trend right now. Whatever genre you write, you have to have romance inside it if you want to attract readers. I write historical fiction, but the FL genre doesn't allow me to have this 'historical genre' and I have to choose 'historical romance''. Isn't that an indicator that the majority readers want to see FL with historical romance and not historical fiction?
Avidfan as a reader of your novel, I know exactly the quality of your writing. It is not put on Feature for a week not only because Eastern Fantasy never got picked, also because the romance inside is NOT BOMBASTIC enough for the female readers to vote and make it the most popular Eastern Fantasy
Or let's put it a different way: most romances are cheap. A dollar can get you 20-25 chapters...which you can read on the way to woek or school (if you're on transit) or during a lunch break. A dollar...when girls usually spend a lot more than that just for a tube of lipstick or mascara...
Erm, it not about the romance. It picked by the editors and not the readers:X Some romance stories actually have no romances at all and there are only like 10 chapters too.
Avidfan oicic. Wow, ten chapters and got picked up? Wow!!
NoWoRRyMaN
I write romance, and I'm not offended.
Webnovel was once a refugee for Eastern cultivation and system type novels, with some Asian historical romance as a side dish. Then, contemporary romance invaded, with authors coming from other parts of the world (me being one of these), from other platforms... etc.
The only difference from Wattpad now is that we can find some Eastern Fantasy here. It's still relevant but losing its space.
When I say I write a novel, and people ask where, they often comment... 'Ah, the other Wattpad.'
Webnovel's losing (or rebranding) its identity to something else.
The old public is trying to make themselves heard.
Are the authors to be blamed? No. Nor the readers.
But I don't think it's wrong to wish to get back some of what made Webnovel relevant in the past, though.
- Edited
Yea, you can pick up the app and tap on the features. Some have very short chapters. Some even have less than 10 power stones. I even saw one with 2 power stone. As long as the editor likes your story, you can get feature.
I write romance books too but at time I believe that Romance should take a back seat in your book when it's needed having excessive scenes can make the book look the same ,I usually like blend of a lot of genres but the fact why most people go for romance is maybe the fact that people like that feeling that itself is attached to the word idk. Sci-fic although very creative but not something that can be easily imagined for oneself which is with the romance genre a lot of people find it relatable or something close to their fantasy of sort. Although that doesn't mean that it should be having a priority because every genre writer is working equally hard. With some out of the world and speechless ideas.
NoWoRRyMaN me too. Last feature was 2 months ago, it didn't even covered my MGS properly. 
But, what do we know, right?
Avidfan
Ah I got what you mean. I honestly have never tried to read books that are featured. I tend to search based on the genre that I want to read instead of seeing the featured novels.
.