Webnovel.Forum

So, here's a long rant about the membership system - and yes, I know this has been posted before, but I thought I might add my own voice to the old topic.

So recently, I bought a membership due to the promise off 500 coins upon purchase and 300 each month, however, I've become more and more disenfranchised with the membership, and extension, Webnovel/Qidian after having experienced what it truly offers.
For those of you who might be new to Webnovel, or somehow living under a rock, for roughly $10 a month (first month is a bit cheaper), you can get some membership advantages that consists of an unique badge, 500 coins upon purchase and 300 coin over the month.
This might seem like a great deal, but when deep diving into the details, the 300 coins are from daily logins, so if you should miss that day, you miss out on 10 coins. Furthermore, with new chapters costing about 7+ coins, 10 coins extra a day will only gain you an extra chapter. I.e., free fast pass promotion will gain you access to 3 chapters a day, but membership will only gain you 1. Sure, they can be combined, but you would expect that, as a paid membership, that you would get some more benefits than just that. Right?

Now, if you're an author and you're reading this, especially if you're a privileged/contracted author, one of the clauses for the amount of payout is the amount of viewed chapters (afaik). Then ask yourself this, if every user only has 3 free chapters that they can use to unlock (and if membership, then 4), what are the odds that they'll use it on your novel?

I personally follow around 8+ novels, and most of them release daily, so what am I to do, beyond buying 500 coin packs, that I cant afford?

I go to pirate sites. Yup, I said it.

Dear author, if I can find your novel on pirate site, I'll read it there, because I can't afford to spend +100's of dollars a month on Qidian. I love your novels, I'll give you power stones, but your paywall has forced me, even with my membership, to go to pirate sites. My free fast passes go to my top 3 novels that I follow.

I don't like it anymore than you do. Personally, I love the novel community, and no, I'm not being a hypocrite, I'm being a realist. I love the platform that Webnovel provides. The opportunities webnovel gives to new authors, but the paywall is greater than the Great Wall of China.

So, here's my suggestions, why not make a $10 membership where there's no paywall? It works for Netflix. It works for Spotify. Hell, Spotify practically eradicated music piracy by making it (music) affordable and accessible.

If you're Qidian top-management, the powers that be, the hot shot, etc., I know that the majority of your income is based upon coin purchases. The select few "big spenders." But have you tried running the math on what it would look like if those 10+ millions of visitors (https://www.similarweb.com/website/webnovel.com/) spent 10 dollars a month? 1. It would make you financial planning a hell of a lot easier and a whole lot less volatile. 2. You would be able to effectively able to plan and predict financials, with less overhead and uncertainty on gains and losses. 3. You would be less dependent on sporadic coin purchases - doing this now is effectively living like beggars dependent on charity, hoping people will purchase coins instead of going to a pirate site.

For authors, an unlimited membership would give you readers, who truly read your novels. For experienced/popular authors, yes it would give you more competition, but now your readers will no longer jump to a pirate site to read your novel, thus giving you your fair share of earnings. For new authors, you would no longer have to compete with the popular authors for fast passes and your novel would be given a chance to shine.

So these are more 2 cents. Sorry for the lengthy post, and I truly hope that this ends up somewhere, where someone notices it and makes a positive change to the greedy practices of Webnovel that forces readers away, authors to their knees, and eventually Qidian to shut down.

I hope that you can comment, like, and share, if you also would like an unlimited membership option.

Relhak They tried it, and it failed.

Unlimited reading for $25/month. Considerably more than your suggestion. It was still too popular. It lasted about 4 months.

Income for the top authors went down by as much as 50%. Since the books by the top authors are the ones that bring in the vast majority of the money, WebNovel has to keep the top authors happy.

Why the income decrease? WebNovel has never said, but I assume I'm fairly typical of those readers who actually spend $20-$30/month here. I subscribed as soon as possible. I was still reading my top authors with their continuing books publishing a new chapter a day, but I was also reading complete 1000 chapters novels of lesser authors. My money was going to completed books (which very little money goes to now) instead of the ongoing chapters. So instead of the top authors getting half of my money a month, they were getting maybe 5% of my money.

Your suggestion would be very reasonable if WebNovel was making money off of completed novels (like Kindle). But WebNovel is geared towards making money off of books currently being written/translated.

WebNovel still should find some way to monetize their completed books. Their discounted weekend book program is an attempt, but not a very good one. I personally would like them to add the ability to read one or two novels of my choice each month (unlimited chapters) to their current membership setup and possibly take away the bonus coins for daily login (making almost all coins paid).

I can honestly say I havent seen the benefits of the membership. I usually purchase 20 u.s dollars worth of coins and still doesn't last me till the end of the month. A monthly service fee that gives me premium access would definitely interest me. Currently right now its 10 dollars for membership , 20 dollars just for coins and not to mention the privileges allowed by certain writers that can be very costly like 14 dollars just to read 28 chapters ahead which is almost the amount of coins I spend biweekly. As much as I enjoy the novels and wish to support the writers it would be unrealistic to think I could spend 40 to 60 a dollars every other week for webnovels.

NoWoRRyMaN Uh, it isn't actually an opinion an author will get nothing from such a membership rather it is factually incorrect(unless webnovel withholds payment that is). The more popular stuff tends to earn less than the current way but it doesn't mean their income completely disappears as a result.

Though the current system does favor the more popular series when people have a limited supply of coins they can spend they usually choose to spend it on their favorite series. Personally, I find this system unfair as when a reader is forced to choose what to do with their limited coins less popular series are likely to be ruled out of the equation, but I also understand an individual not wanting a hit at their income just to make things fair and we see it in literally every industry so it isn't surprising it exists. Youtube also tried this as an option to replace ads and I forget exactly how it worked out but I remember popular YouTubers throwing a fit due to them having to share a slice of the pie with others(even though a good portion of those people probably were using adblock so they were receiving nothing from these people in the first place and they were just getting upset at having to share a slice of the pie they didn't have in the first place).

NoWoRRyMaN The idea you gave about the unlimited novel-reading will be no different than readers reading on the pirate sites, because it will be free .... And with your great plan of unlimited free reading novel with membership....author will get nothing.

That's just factually completely incorrect. The proposal here was $10/month. Programs like Kindle Unlimited ($10/month), and the aborted WebNovel unlimited reading ($24/month) all pool the money and split a percentage (40-50% in WebNovels's case I believe) of the incoming money to authors based upon the number of pages/chapters read under the program.

Many authors did better when WebNovel started their failed program but the top authors uniformly did worse. WebNovel has to keep the top authors happy, so they cancelled the program.

Where did you possibly get the idea that the authors get nothing?

Relhak

I agree with the membership idea, and there could still be locked chapters.

But sadly, Web Novel used to follow a fairer release schedule, where chapters were released after a while, and not all chapters were locked. And this idea has been suggested before.

Hmmm.... how about combine some model? "Unlimited" membership but only for the novel and comic that wants to be freely read joined under it, but for some big hot shot novel/author, they still need to use coin to read their story.

Just to throw it out there in 2018 webnovel did had unlimited membership for few month into the end of the year.

The drop it because most of there author were not making money while other were. Just cause alot people to be upset.

Webnovel should add a limited "free" 24H reading voucher to their lineup which can be applied to a single novel, that costs... let's say... $3 so if people buy it every weekend of the month, it'll average to about $25.5 per month, in line with their old unlimited model. It solves the issue of binge reading completed works that will never see coins again (unless they were the most popular works on the site).
Then, they can use a more patreon-like subscription model for individual novels where a certain amount is pledged to each novel per month to unlock new chapters only, that is automatically drawn (and must be manually cancelled after series is completely unlocked, because that's how Webnovel does business).
Then one monthly subscription option could then be a package deal of vouchers, coins, and pledging fees.

NoWoRRyMaN Do you seriously believe that could ever work?
Don't speak in behalf of all readers/authors/users.
You don't really know about it.
Not trying to be rude here, but first try writing your own novel and say the same thing after 4 months. Then we can talk about this.

You may or may not be an author, but your reading comprehension is terrible. The authors as a group are getting the same total amount of money in either case. The problem with the WebNovel failed attempt was that the top authors (the ones that attract new readers and draw subscribers to paying) were getting substantially less than before, while other authors were getting more. Web-novels are different from novels - the ongoing novels have the most importance.

In no cases are the authors not getting paid for their work - your claims are just wrong. Please read up on the Kindle Unlimited program; there's been lots written about it.

KoraL I thinks the ideas are good, but I fear it's too complicated. The current setup is already pretty daunting to newcomers!

CrispyCritter I mean they already complicated things with the fast passes. They might as well go all out. At least the limited free reading passes already existed before. They should now monetize it properly. We just need to throw enough ideas at them until one sticks and everyone gets a better cost to value proposition.

CrispyCritter agreed. I'm about to walk away. I'm not spending 50$ on one book that has so many issues, when I can go online or to money for free. Or buy a book online for 3$. (Which some you can actual find for sale on line shhh.) But it's insane. I don't want to read 1 chapter a day. Atleast done apps give coupons and allow you to earn bonus coins. I thought this site would be cheaper for him until I found one that wanted over 50$. No thanks. I'll go online and give 100 just like it for 3$. Smh I would pay for an unlimited read membership though.