Webnovel.Forum

MotivatedSloth I think you have some great ideas there and you've already done enough with analysing how practical and implemental it it. The rest should be for WN to figure out in hopes they read this post.

I also have a suggestion for improvement but I don't know exactly how profitable it would be or better how much WN would lose when compared to how they do it right now. The thing is I hate all those novels getting literally spammed and forced onto the market by webnovel. I like how you can trial read now before the novel is up vor vote. BUT an output of two novels a week? Most of them aren't even that good or interesting (my opinion) and for the FL ones the trend is that the plots are carbon copies of each other. Also the differentiation between FL and ml... But okay
- I guess the separation is so that ml novels also get a chance to get released as there are more people interested in FL/romance stories here (what I feel) so it's okay

But could we make the voting so that a novel gets published only after reaching a certain count of energy stones? Like a million or so? Because usually the older one in the vote gets published then a next one joins the vote and the previous younger one is now the older one that gets published next etc (hopefully you know what I mean). They get around 300,000 votes each week before publishing.
To make it fair put more novels into the voting pot at the same time (I don't know like once a month) and open the pot for voting. After the time is up the ones that reached a certain amount get published and the pot gets restocked with new novels and the count starts from zero. Like this only the "best" gets out.
But as I said previously I don't know how lucrative it's for WN to do so because I guess they earn from every published novel. Maybe (really just maybe) they could implement that people with membership get one more energy stone to vote or let people purchase energy stones with money for hardcore fans to get their novel out. It should be noted that only a certain amount like maybe 5 to 10 (?) could be maximally purchased in said time frame till the voting pot resets and that spending money there doesn't guarantee your novel to reach the trees hold to get published.

This was it for now from me but still really glad you opened up this post. Thank you

HinataPerolada No spotlight or buzz around completed novels anymore

I guess I personally can vouch this. There never really was any extra buzz around completed works for starters. I'm saying this as a small ant and cannon fodder author.

I think everyone has expressed really good insights here.

For me, I've come to an understanding of this place. WN leads, we follow. That is all.

HinataPerolada yeah completed novels should get more attention at least every now end then. Some really good story's are sinking in the dust and for me some of them count as classics (maybe just because I was new to Webnovels then and they were my firsts but still) it's sad that the "younger ones" most probably won't stumble upon them anymore. Especially when they aren't even in the rankings anymore

Also we need information if a books on hiatus and how long or if it was dropped etc

And now I'm finally going to bed because it's way too late

And for the forum something like a search thing to search up certain words or topics you want to see posts about (if there's already something like this I am to blind to find it)

I still think that they could sell limited free reading vouchers. They already have the infrastructure in place. They have historically been able to place restrictions on what novels they could be used on too, so it wouldn't be as onerous to implement as the suggested chunking method. The only downside is that the chapters read would not remain unlocked. To avoid additional overuse, they could sell them only as a part of a subscription. For example (Eight 12-hour limited free reading vouchers for participating novels per month for $20 that expire after 30 days).

As for the "caught up subscription" they could sell a type of subscription that drops one (or release rate number of) pre-specified single-work fast pass into your inbox daily. Then they wouldn't need to implement an auto-unlock system.

KoraL Your system of free reading is in my opinion way too generous. Right now, taking 7 coins worth per chapter and only 30 chapters a month, that gives us the value of 210 coins/month (to read just the already released chapters) + let's say we take an average novel of 400 chapters (only). First 100 is free. Then for the price of 1.25$ you can get 330*7=2310 coins worth of reading (way more for longer novels) that equals to 46.2$. What you are proposing is making WN lower the income of their side, authors and translators by 36.96 times. Not ~37%.

37 times. And that only taking into account people would read average novels and use those passes on novels with 10 premium chapters to get this super low 400 chap average.

MotivatedSloth You can read over 450k words in 12 hours? Maybe I'm underestimating most readers? Also, it was an example of how they could price it, and the intention would be to limit it to novels that weren't generating (much) income to begin with. Heck, they can make it a rotating list of 30 or so novels and reduce the number of vouchers to 5 per month of the 4 hour vouchers. (You also divided 20 by 8 wrong.) And at a higher tier, like bronze/silver/gold vouchers, they could have 100 or so novels on the list for $50. Eventually people will forget to use some and WN income will increase, although participating authors may be disadvantaged, but they would get readers they otherwise would not have gotten.

I agree that Koral's proposal probably won't work for ongoing novels for the same reason that the $25/month unlimited that WebNovel tried didn't work - it interferes too much with the profitable (for both top authors and WebNovel) new daily chapters.

MotivatedSloth's factor of 18 is prohibitive when talking about ongoing daily chapters. It is not out of the question when talking about completed books. Getting paid $2.50 for 400 chapters instead of $46.20 is something that would be beneficial for most authors, given that pretty much nobody would ever pay $46.20 for a 400 chapter book. Getting some money is better than none.

Koral's proposal may be reasonable if it applied only to completed books and was easy to regulate/police. But making sure the money gets to the right authors is surprisingly difficult; I know Amazon has all sorts of contortions it goes through for Kindle Unlimited. Getting a bot to read novels for an author is not difficult, and can really impact an author's share of the money coming in.

There's many different proposals that might work. Here's 3:
1. Monthly subscription of $10 to read a single novel (The first of month, you choose your novel for the month.)
2. WebNovel expands the limited fast passes by selling them (for specific novels) at a reduced rate.
3. WebNovel strongly reduces the cost of buying batch chapters. 20% discount for 50 chapters, 30% for 100 chapters, up to an 80% discount for 500 chapters.

All have pros and cons. My favorite is 3. The base mechanism already exists; there's no selecting and keeping track of novels, it's applicable to both completed and ongoing novels, allocation of money to authors/translators is straight-forward, making long novels one fifth the cost (the 80% discount) is about right to match what others are doing.

MotivatedSloth I really admire your work and ideas! Well thought of and neatly presented.
In fact - despite agreeing to all of your suggestions - I came here to write about a total different approach.

The current system no matter how you tried to amend will still seem super pricey for some, or many, regardless of how you tried to support them.
And the reason of this might return to the difference in seeing the books here than seeing books at other places. Here we have novels with hundreds of chapters, even thousands.

So here is my thing: Why not deal with a novel as it being a series? a volume as it being a book? a couple of volumes as being a part?

Readers won't understand difficult math, and adding more to the mix will make it more complicated despite intending to be the opposite.

So for me, it's best to be straight forwards like this;
Series: The King's Avatar.
Buy Book one: the real number of coins needed without the need of any discount.
Buy book two... buy book three...
Buy Part 1: the number of coins dedicated to open a predetermined number of volumes to be a separate part by the writer\ editors\wn itself.
Buy part 2... buy part 3...
and finally buy the entire released series to far.

Like this no one is going to lose anything, the readers will get it the way they really used to - going to any store either real or virtual and buy a book of a series - and no one will complain about a book being so expensive and long. After all they are going to buy dozens of books in one series and have many options and varieties to do so.

Well, this is just a thought I had for long, and hopefully I explained it well despite having covid right now and feeling tired.
Thanks again for the effort.
ranmaro. "Sorry for any mistake in writing, I really about to fall asleep over the keyboard right now."

MotivatedSloth I really admire your work and ideas! Well thought of and neatly presented.
In fact - despite agreeing to all of your suggestions - I came here to write about a total different approach.

The current system no matter how you tried to amend will still seem super pricey for some, or many, regardless of how you tried to support them.
And the reason of this might return to the difference in seeing the books here than seeing books at other places. Here we have novels with hundreds of chapters, even thousands.

So here is my thing: Why not deal with a novel as it being a series? a volume as it being a book? a couple of volumes as being a part?

Readers won't understand difficult math, and adding more to the mix will make it more complicated despite intending to be the opposite.

So for me, it's best to be straight forwards like this;
Series: The King's Avatar.
Buy Book one: the real number of coins needed without the need of any discount.
Buy book two... buy book three...
Buy Part 1: the number of coins dedicated to open a predetermined number of volumes to be a separate part by the writer\ editors\wn itself.
Buy part 2... buy part 3...
and finally buy the entire released series to far.

Like this no one is going to lose anything, the readers will get it the way they really used to - going to any store either real or virtual and buy a book of a series - and no one will complain about a book being so expensive and long. After all they are going to buy dozens of books in one series and have many options and varieties to do so.

Well, this is just a thought I had for long, and hopefully I explained it well despite having covid right now and feeling tired.
Thanks again for the effort.
ranmaro. "Sorry for any mistake in writing, I really about to fall asleep over the keyboard right now."

ranmaro I agree that breaking novels up into parts would help the perception of some readers. But it doesn't change the fact that the prices WebNovel charges for completed novels are absurd!

WebNovel's pricing strategy is aimed at producing and supporting original work and new translations. I think they charge a very reasonable amount for that goal - their pricing for ongoing daily chapters is fine and I spend $30/month between membership and top ups. The problem is that they apply the same pricing models to bulk reading, for example of already completed novels.

I did more thorough comparison of WebNovel prices to other sources in another thread:
https://forum.webnovel.com/d/50508-rip-off/25
I'll just give one example here (see the other thread for details):

I Shall Seal the Heavens will cost $288 here to read the 1611 chapters.
If you buy it as an ebook from Wuxiaworld (if it is still available there), it will cost $55.
If you buy it from Amazon, you will pay $5 per volume for 9 volumes, or $45 total.
If you read it on Amazon Kindle Unlimited and can read it in a month, it will cost you $10 to read.

No matter how you break up I Shall Seal the Heavens into parts, it is still going to be enormously more expensive here than elsewhere, until WebNovel starts offering a different way to read bulk or completed novels.

CrispyCritter well let's say to make the thread more useful and productive we have here two models to discuss: the ongoing novels and the completed novels.
For me, I think breaking the ongoing model into smaller books and parts and sell it on bulk would be more beneficial. Especially when you consider other marketing aspect, like pumping up an already dying novel - original or translated - by using discount on certain books or parts. Such solutions might help novels that are about to be dropped or dropped already to inject some life into it, and gain more in the future by writing or translating more chapters in it.

As for the fees for them, the ongoing novels share one simple disadvantage which is the low number of purchases once the readers reached the end chapter published. So to maintain the equilibrium it's better to keep it divided in the current prices, without changes unless discussed by the writers, translators, editors, and wn staff.

As for completed novels, for me I see them as a bonus books. These books either original or translated have their ongoing expenditure ended the moment they were completed - especially the translated ones.
So cutting the price in lower values - like the examples you mentioned - might be an attracting factor to make these novels still bring sales, provided that they didn't bring enough after period of closure.
Which is the main case in most novels I think, original and translated.
Having a completed novel that few reads due to lack of propaganda when the author or the translator fees were cut off and there is no more expenditure to it might be solved by having this discount. Many readers will be aware that the prices of completed novels are much cheaper than the ongoing ones, and that will help to drive more motion to them.
But the question here will this affect the ongoing novels?

Still this has to be properly calculated and thoroughly tested, as even using logic can't be applied to many real life scenarios. Many tests are needed and a few examples - even from Amazon - aren't enough to judge precisely on the validity of such alterations.

Many published authors when you buy their old works you'll get great prices for them compared to the time of hype they had the year of these works' release and couple of years after. still some famous works still carry their value and have their prices stable after many years, and I don't know if these would be applicable too here in wn or it will fail.

After giving it another thought, the matter is much complicated than I initially thought. Many parameters are laid on the table, for example is the work ongoing or completed? Does it bring money even whether it's ongoing or completed? Is it popular or it's already buried under the dirt? Does it have a sequel or it's a stand alone book?
Considering these elements you'll reach the conclusion that some books differ than others, and then we'll have to tweak this to separate books according to many parameters.
Which is hard to plan, try out, and execute to be honest. A full parameter with scores is needed, many will be asked out of authors, translators and editors to do for such a system to operate and function properly. More importantly closer monitoring for testing, preservation, and maintenance is asked from the higher ups of the company to make sure the system won't suddenly crash and everything they worked for years won't be smashed into pieces.

The more the system became complicated, the harder it is to do and succeed. Frankly speaking, If I was one of the higher ups in the company, I would toss my idea away and not consider it, harsh yet true.

I'll come back if I have a better simpler idea, or not.
ranmaro.

CrispyCritter sorry forget to mention fast passes. Don't know how much one can have for a month, but if one per day, then thirty per month, so this would be considered as thirty free chapters calculated to be read without paying.
Sigh, it's too complicated and I'm too tired to do maths right now, but things like these make trying to mimic any external example here in wn hard and unpredictable.

ranmaro Yes, ongoing and completed novels are a bit different, but my guess is that most ongoing authors/translators would be OK with large batch discounts on their early chapters. Anything to get a new reader up to date on their novel so the reader can start paying the full daily chapter price and even have the chance of paying for privilege. That's where the bigger WebNovel profits will come from. I do think the author/translator of ongoing novels should probably have veto power over giving those large discounts, but I think most should be willing.

As far as fast passes go, they are pretty insignificant in these bulk scenarios. I already discounted the WebNovel prices by the full top up bonus (15%) and added another 5% for fast passes, which I consider realistic. Consider that if someone reads I shall Seal the Heavens for two months, and applies every fast pass possible in those two months to the novel, they will have saved just over 2000 coins or $35. The WebNovel price would be reduced to about $260 from $288 (after adding back in the 5% I had taken out) - still immensely far from Amazon's $45.

Winzentwinni The voting system improvements are in my opinion really needed. Your ideas are really good. I personally thought that they could make votinh time longer (2-3 weeks) and add more novels to it (so the variety will be higher) while still allowing only two winners.
It would limit book dump and probably reduce amount of dropped translations.

Ah, the dropped translations - that issue is pretty hard to crack because they weren't giving enough profit. I think they could add a event happening either irregularly (the event would start if amount of dropped novel went over a certain cap) or regulary (once/two times a year). I mean over a certain amount of time a dropped novel might get more fans (though dropped novels are pretty unattractive for obvious reasons)who would support it's further release. And I mean there are (or were) few novels really close to ending (less than 100 chapters) but the question is whether resuming of such book would be profitable. I mean it might be better than just letting the rights to publish certain novel rot in a corner?
I'm not that good at understanding how this type of business exactly works so take this with a grain of salt.