It's turned out that some of novel here got dropped !! Sad to say that some of my favorite novel stopped updating all of a sudden and without notifying us if it's got dropped or what !?? Why always left us hanging ??? atleast they must be considerate and and see how goods the plots of story not just about $$$$ !!! Just saying ......
Novel that got dropped !!!
Yeah, sadly its true that some novel really got dropped. 
Basically whatever novels are dropped is determined entirely by profits. Tragically you end up in a situation where as Webnovel has the licensing rights to the novels no one else can pick up the novel so you'll never see the end unless you're willing to singlehandedly pay all of Webnovel's costs for the novel that is at least a 5 figure sum. They insist that any translations must be uniquely held on their platform (with associated paywalls etc) while also dropping all the non-profitable novels so there isn't much incentive for a new TL to pick it up. Being realistic if novel isn't in top 100 in power rankings it's pretty much guaranteed to be dropped at some point in time and that might even apply to those in lower half of top 100.
Personally while not thrilled by being told any novel not making money is dropped I can kind of respect it. However fact that it's dropped with no update whatsoever isn't good customer service. If being cynical I guess it costs money to get someone to draft a message to readers saying novel is dropped and it is unlikely to generate positive responses. It might be regarded as a poor return on investment as most of the readers weren't paying money so they aren't target audience to keep onboard.
Being even more cynical these novels while dropped still provide some passive income if new readers aren't aware it's dropped and end up spending money unlocking chapters until they reach a cliffhanger when chapters stop so to get maximum benefit you need to encourage new readers. If novels were classified into Completed/Ongoing/Dropped instead of Completed/Ongoing can you imagine anyone spending money buying thousands of coins to unlock all the chapters fully aware story will end abruptly with no closure...
AnnoyingADs Are you sure they are not making money? In business, sometimes things get dropped because they do not make enough money or because the situation has other complications (e.g. external politics, company politics, disagreements between website and translator, payment and other contract disputes, etc.).
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mng I'm not privy to exact financials although not making any money or not making enough money is pretty much the same thing with crux of the matter being it failing to meet an income threshold. I would assume one of two scenarios occurs:
- Webnovel pays TL a set fee. If income is less than that it's automatically dropped. It's even possible that just covering TL fee is still enough for it to be dropped as Webnovel doesn't want all the income to go to TLs and lose their cut.
- Webnovel makes enough to translate a novel but once Webnovel and Qidian (and hypothetically author) take their cut there is practically nothing left for TL.
Personally I think Qidian ran Webnovel as a loss making enterprise to try to gain market share. Now with Covid-19 etc they can't afford to run a loss making operation so they're trying to balance the books and even make a tidy profit. Logical way to do that is to get the most money from the least translations. So I think the plan is to drop every under-performing novel and hope that income from those novels is spent on more popular novels. As more popular novels are already being translated there is no additional expense there and as less popular novels are dropped they save money. There is also issue that in trying to poach novels from other sites they may have offered TLs terms that were more lucrative than their previous deal and then they discovered novel wasn't generating enough to cover it so they offer the TL a 50% pay cut that might be less than their previous deal and as a result they lose their TL and also think it's not worth going to hassle of getting a new one if it wasn't making that much money.
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AnnoyingADs To me, your messages all seem very well-written and well-thought out. I actually share many of the same views, though I believe they miss some aspects.
Most critically, it ignores the "human" aspect. It's easy to believe there is an emotionless machine logically deciding which stories are dropped and which are maintained. However, in reality humans interfere. Is there an exception process where staff can decide to keep a story that does not meet the "official" criteria or conversely drop a book that exceeds the criteria? Is there even an official criteria at all and if so, what is it? How do they even calculate profitability per story? Do they take into account stories that drive up traffic and increase ad revenues? How do they calculate this and is the data fully comprehensive and fully accurate or are there ways to game the system?
It's easy to assume that there is some obvious business rationale behind what they are doing, because they are a business and a relatively big one at that. However, the fact is that humans have emotions and do not always act rationally and logically. And even when they try to, it's not always so easy. For example, it might be very hard to quantify all of the various factors that dropping or keeping a story involve. How do you quantify the loss in revenue by being known as a site that has a reputation for strong-arming translators to join only to then drop the translation? How do you quantify how much of this was the result of dropping or keeping a particular story?
Another reason why I am especially cautious of blanket general statements around the idea that the "story did not make money therefore it was dropped" is the assumption that it is only reasonable for a business to not continue doing something that is costing them money. However, what if it was actually making them money but they choose to drop it anyway? I would consider that a very different situation in terms of whether this is the sort of behaviour I would want to support or not.
Anyways, other than these points, I personally think you are right about Qidian initially going for market share before pivoting to profit-making. Though I would probably explain this in a much less concisely and less well-structured than what you wrote. Anyways, apologies for my own less well-written and meandering reply, but hope it accurately communicates my points across.
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mng I don't deny that there is a human aspect involved in some cases as I imagine some people carry more clout. For example you'll see that popular content creators can get away with things in platforms like youtube and if they do get banned unfairly can easily contest it. On the other hand if someone with under 100 viewers gets unfairly banned then they just need to accept it as even if they are right as they'll just get ignored. However I suspect that to do so you would need a good reason as at least when I work I need a good reason to break the rules as otherwise it's my head on the line.
I think the other problem is that Webnovel is being run by Qidian that is a Chinese company that is run using Chinese business logic. This is reflected in part by the fact that micro-transactions are the preferred revenue stream when you see many western companies preferring subscription models like Netflix etc. Another example would be premium chapters were introduced because Chinese part of the company was unhappy western audiences got translations for free while Chinese readers had to pay. Chinese companies rank worst in transparency in the emerging markets so chances of getting accurate information are slim. Reputation I think is less important in the face of profits.
If giving a corporate hierarchy it would go Tencent > Qidian > Webnovel > Webnovel Staff > TLs > Readers. As you go down the hierarchy everyone puts pressure to make more money. Tencent wants more from Qidian, so Qidian in turn puts pressure on Webnovel who put pressure on their staff. To ensure they keep their jobs they put pressure on TLs who in turn try to plead with their readers to spend money rather than fast passes.
I've also noticed that Webnovel editors are putting more effort into recruiting for original novels as that doesn't have translation costs nor licensing costs so has literally zero expenses that should give a higher profit margin. For example I think for a translated novel 30% of the income goes to rights holder (That is Qidian as author doesn't have rights), then you get translating costs that is around $20/chapter minimum so the zero point is around $28.57 assuming Webnovel makes nothing. For an original novel it's $0 with same profit share ratio. So after 100 chapters they would be $2857 better off with original novels rather than translations assuming same revenue while also having no risk as if it makes less then author just gets less. So I think it is possible that they think translations are more hassle than it's worth especially if original novels are more profitable. If you look at power stone rankings only 3 out of the top 10 are translations so I suspect all the unpopular translations will soon die.
As for my concerned atleast notify us when the novel got dropped although we're gonna disappointed but alteast we're not anticipating and leave us hanging !! Too many novel uploaded here but unfortunately my favorite got dropped .... The old version of webnovel is better than now .
8 days later
AnnoyingADs A well-thought out and great reply. Agree with everything you wrote and I apologise for my own late response. I don't tend to frequent the forums of this site very often because I find a significant number of posts comprise of apologists and trolls that reduce my faith in humanity. Thanks for being one of the people that helps restore my faith in humanity and its capabilities.
One point I would like to raise (that does not contradict what you wrote, but I think is important to emphasise) is that it's not just Chinese companies that care more about their senior leadership and profits more than reputation. In my opinion, some western companies might seem to pay more attention to 'reputation' solely from the perspective of proactively heading off disadvantageous laws and share price fluctuations, rather than because they innately care it. Chinese companies tend to have been somewhat immune to this based on who tends to own and trade their stocks, being able to play the racism card, and their home country laws being formulated by a very different process than most democracies. If western companies' bad reputation did not affect the laws and share price, I think the level of care they have about their reputation might be about the same. I think we can kind of see this in how western and chinese companies act in countries that have very lax legislation and don't pay much attention to their citizens' rights or general welfare. They do what they want and they get away with it, unless a sufficiently big fuss is made about it in their home countries. And some home countries care more about these sorts of things than others.
Noof I wouldn't necessarily say the old one was better; for example, the front page seems a lot better than what I first saw when I joined this site. But I can fully understand being upset that something you enjoyed was dropped. Especially if it was done with little to no warning or communication. Even more so if it seems like it was doing well on another site before WN insisted it more to this site before shutting it down. I have been in that position far too often, so fully sympathise with what you are going through.
mng Well I don't bother to check the forums much either since most messages seem to be people getting unsolicited messages on wattpad with a contract offer to poach their novel or people asking for review swaps that seems to be gaming the system. Main thing I check out of curiosity is which novel has been dropped as people invariably post when confused why their novel has stopped being updated.
I agree that western companies have their own faults. If you look at things like the Bhopal disaster you can see that western companies are by no means paragons of virtue when lax legislation exists. In a lot of fashion retailers it has turned out that cheap clothes are made in sweatshops and no companies cared until consumers found out and then they all pretended they never realised their supplier was using these practices and that it violated their contractual terms etc.
As far as reputation goes I think neither China nor western world has it right. In China basically as long as a company has the support of the Chinese Communist Party then everything is good and they can ignore the rest as the CCP will make sure everyone else falls into line. In western world companies are terrified at the prospect of any potential boycotts while polling shows people spend more at companies that "care" and so try to walk a tightrope where they keep everyone happy. For example it is very popular to champion social justice causes with a slogan that claims they care but has little sincerity. Interestingly since many western companies have no real moral compass and simply go the way the wind flows it can have unintended consequences when they try to adopt most profitable position in markets with opposing viewpoints. Classic example is Blizzard who in response to Blitzchung's Free Hong Kong protest banned him to protect their Chinese interests that then in turn lead to a boycott from western consumers.
Trying to make a profit at all costs may well even be human nature. If you take it at an individual level you see people currently buying Playstation 5 and Xbox series X using bots and then reselling them on ebay at a massive profit while taking advantage of limited stock. While their reputation is terrible they are making money and if money is your only indicator of success then they can be defined as successful. If you scale it up then it becomes a successful company. A lot of it also depends on perspective as from the consumer viewpoint it's an immoral opportunist but from the corporate viewpoint it's generating a tidy profit from little work that is what you would class as a lucrative job/contract.
5 months later
I would like to see free collections of Japanese literature. It might be interesting to me
@Grand_Void_Daoist Necro
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