Man, even if they somehow get first place in the rankings due to the power stones they receive, it's not gonna do them any good as all winners are decided by the quality and content of their novel.

But it is still a pain in the ass that these botters are getting power stones from thin air while those who are working hard are getting them from valid readers.

It's reasonable if they have a loyal fanbase like JKS because he's the only person I can think of. Anyway, I think this bot problem should be dealt with by webnovel editors.

Hmm... I was gonna end this with a joke but I'm completely empty...

AimeeLynn buy each other's 1 coin privilege and so get banner ads for all their books.

I heard about that, but I didn't realize that it made a difference to feature positioning.

      Veronica8 Yeah its been like that for a while. People with 100 priv readers used to get a weekly feature but they cancelled that due to how many people were priv trading with alts.

        Well, some of these novels are being featured "pirate Harem system" is weekly featured right now, getting a lot of leverage (I thought only contracted novels should, but it only proves we know nothing.)
        Other author mentioned here have several books with reasonable success and a fan base. I think it's perfectly reasonable to reach a certain number of votes if you ask your readers to support you for a while putting their votes in a single novel.
        Just to remember it's not against the rules to rally people outside the usual WN readers. I for myself went to all my hobby groups and rallied people that might support my novel.
        Some new authors bring their fanbase from their original platforms, and so on.
        The editors often recommend paying ads out of your pocket (well, I have mixed feelings about it if it's a contracted novel).
        So, though some issues mentioned here are real, I'd tread carefully since you can start a witch's trial based on superficial consideration.

        I was wondering in my first contest that I entered how some books had so many votes already and the contest had just started. Now, I know.

        That is also really sad. Why can't everyone just keep a level field and play nice?

          I was wondering in my first contest that I entered how some books had so many votes already and the contest had just started. Now, I know.

          That is also really sad. Why can't everyone just keep a level field and play nice?

          darcyjog Because they are afraid that their novel won't do well without cheating. Don't worry about it too much though. Just watch as their novel doesn't get any actual readers and laugh at them.

              https://m.webnovel.com/book/digging-to-survive-i-can-see-hints_19581889005681105
              This novel is a VICTIM of botting it got wipe out by thrash novel with bare translation and mistaken copies of other novels.
              I as readers though that this website was going to put not the so called public opinion which is based on paid transactions hidden deals and more on quality. Let me remind you that this website is for a lack of better word a repackaging of the flood of endless novels produced in Asia, most of what we get were indeed the leftover or the most populars ones who are looking for more money.
              I won't be surprised if this thread gets buried, deleted or put invisible for other users to not see it.

                Zero_Things I will laugh if that happens. However, it is frustrating and almost disheartening when you are trying to get your story be viewed naturally by others and the bots stories push you out of the way. I decided to take a break from the contests, but I'm still thinking about writing for the Spirited contest. But even that is starting to lose some spark for me.....

                    darcyjog I didn't bot in a comp and still got a gold. The editors are looking at content when they judge. But I think for Spirity it would harder to see who used botting to get ahead early, then that got them the exposure they needed to pull real readers. That's what worries me--not that real books wo'nt get noticed at all, but that botted books take up time and space that stop good books from getting noticed early. In the end, a botted book makes no money so won't stick around a long time. it's when good content is botted as well that there's aproblem.

                      TheEruditeReader
                      This novel is an mtl, is low in quality for a translated work (because it is mtl) and a trial read.

                      In what way is it a victim of botting?

                      There is a lot of baseless accusations against Webnovel in your response and even more superstition. Your statements on how novels are chosen is also the same, and incorrect. Novels which are popular and as such, a better chance on an international market, are chosen for vote. Which gets decided upon is the ones which earn the company the most because that is how business works. You take the highest paying work, irregardless of what profession you are in. I've never seen one plumber or electrician working for free before.

                          I was surprised when I first found out about this. If Webnovel actually took this issue seriously, win-win and competitions can raise their value back up to how it was in the beginning.

                          As it is now? Very few care since the results will speak for themselves. Now, older top authors are using their own accumulated fanbase to sustain their newer novels since these randos keep botting.

                          To be clear the only thing of value WN provides in exchange for taking your IP and 50% of your earnings is advertising your novel on their platform and sometimes out of it.

                          If the advertising is no longer achievable and one has to do the work themselves, what is the point of signing?

                          I blame the company for their negligence and look down on those who lie to themselves that what they're doing is only fair since they are floundering.

                            darcyjog That is indeed true.

                            As a slightly affected victim of the botters, I hate to say that I am currently demotivated to continue writing my story at all. As a patient of OCD syndrome, I tend to have this suspicion towards people that cheat because I takes a lot of time to really check on others.

                            Hate to say that except myself in the WPC #166, almost the other top stories there is botting. How do I notice that? By checking on their number of votes after 00:00am sharp everyday of course. Up until now, the one who's been taking the first spot before the end of that WPC contest is still botting right now with a 20 to 30 votes increase the moment a new day started.

                            Furthermore, if you check on his vote page clearly, all those so called Daoist fanbase of his, are a single powerstone voters with two to three days gap in between when the account is registered. Hell, I even suspect that half of his collections fanbase were all fake alts used to increase his own view count per day.

                            I felt sorry for the readers. First they had to give my book a chance to skim through my hardly passable english, and then have to be conned by a book where viewcounts and powerstone votes were literally botted to increase the position of his novel. Even if his piece of work is better than me, that's still bought, not earned.

                            At the end of the day, maybe people would say his book is better, this and that, but what else?

                            There's three damage have been done here.

                            Me as an author, was despirited, and might stopped.
                            Readers, who was eager to keep on reading, was corrupted. This is even before we say if the botter are going to stop in between or not.
                            Thirdly, who knows what will happen next to the webnovel. Cheaters are like bad apples inside a crate. One piece of shit is all it needs to turn the entire crate into a chaotic place. By that time a solution has to be done... It would be like zombie infestation everywhere.

                            Just my one cent feeling.

                              Kotario

                              I agree with you wholeheartedly. What is the point in signing a contract with webnovel if they aren't doing anything to promote your novel because the site is flooded with botters? Only the top authors currently will get their work noticed. in comparison, the newbies will just stay at the bottom.

                              It has always been a problem, but ever since they destroyed the weekly feature tab, it has all gone downhill. It was useful before since only 9 novels were there and they stayed there for 3 whole days. But now there are like 30 novels there, and they refresh every time you refresh the page.

                              Your novel even gets buried in weekly features. Which the whole point of a feature is to promote your novel. How can you promote something if it gets buried by other things?

                              It's honestly easier for new novelists to go the amazon route rather than continue on webnovel given the current climate. The only reason most authors came to webnovel is that they offered the best promotion of novels. But that is now gone. The pay for new authors is also bad on all websites. But limiting the pay with a $200 wall also makes new writers lose hope because they might never break that wall.

                              It's at the point where people are thinking, "Why do I continue writing? My novel makes no money because it has no fan base, and I am working my back off for what?"

                              But I will continue with webnovel for the time being until I improve my writing or until it collapses completely.

                                  Zero_Things I agree with you wholeheartedly. What is the point in signing a contract with webnovel if they aren't doing anything to promote your novel because the site is flooded with botters? Only the top authors currently will get their work noticed. in comparison, the newbies will just stay at the bottom.

                                  I disagree with the because part. Webnovel didn't decide to 'not promote novels' because botters exist. It's definetely not the reason, because they actually promote botted novels, regardless.

                                  I believe their inaction on promoting is because they believe it's easier to let the authors battle royale themselves, so the best will rise. And by the best, I mean, the ones able to gather more readers.

                                  And we do it. Win-win promotion was exactly that, a competition of popularity and auto promotion effort and only the top authors with good fanbase and people working tirelessly to auto promote their books would have a reward. WN only officially acnowledged it was a problem and poorly planned when they noticed it was bleeding their pockets (and they took longer than I expected).

                                  About botters... I think most of you know it, but even the New York Times Best Sellers List, the most influential list in the World, is 'botted'.

                                  Many in the publishing industry know that there are companies selling their services to buy an author's books (the author pays them to buy his own books in bulk, if you are wondering) to make it in the ranks. And many of the books that made their way into the NYT Best Sellers list were put there by this tactic. But they will eventually become best sellers by exposition or fall in the ranks like Lucifer fell from heaven, so... why do bother, really?

                                  The only stupid thing is to worry about rankings. They are rigged by nature. A book can be fabricated to check all the marketable points a book has to have, just like many Beauty Pageant Contestants are criticized for doing. The Miss can do plastic surgeries, lipo sucction, etc. It doesn't mean she's naturally the prettiest, the most deserving, but she covers all points in the jury's avaliation sheet. Or she can sleep with D. Trump and win the contest.
                                  In both cases, she worked hard to win the crown LOL.
                                  The organizers can think Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman) was the prettiest in the beauty contest she took part in, but she didn't make any effort to show she wanted to be the winner.

                                  I believe it's the same here. They really want authors that do the hard work for them.

                                  As you said, the only way a new book can be seen is rising in the ranks. So, an uncontracted novelist on WN must find their own readers until it's contracted. I definitely agree with everyone who said a contracted author shouldn't pay out of his pocket or have any concerns about publicity. Because mainly, I'm not splitting my costs with auto advertising with them, but I'm splitting the profits.

                                  A last thing:

                                  Once a novel is contracted, remember, it's officially not yours anymore. So, Webnovel decides whether, how, and when they will advertise it. I was reminded of it a few times by WN.

                                      SrtaA As I said. Webnovel literally gives zero sh*t to botters. Many authors were exposed for botting but webnovel didn't do anything.

                                      And now with win win, they're forcing authors to do their own promotions for privilege. Boosting on social media, taking efforts to market a book everywhere, but all this for what? To get 20 dollar worth of privilege readers for a banner which doesn't even last for 24 hours? It's insane!

                                      If I count in privilege swap, most authors are spending more money on buying coins than what they're earning from win win features. Very few can truly benefit from it unless they have a large readerbase.

                                          Tea_Tae But that's also part of the problem. Priv swaps and people using alt accounts to boost themself is what has stopped the features from working.

                                          They had to reduce the time span of features due to the increased amount of people reaching those milestones.

                                          I feel like they could fix win-win by changing the numbers of readers to total coins earned.

                                          Lowest Like this:

                                          10,000 coins - Minor feature.
                                          25,000 coins - weekly feature.
                                          50,000 coins - banner.
                                          100,000+ coins - Get all the privileges as the top win win prize.

                                          It would fix the webnovel echo system as it would count on how much support readers give your novel rather than fake numbers by people spending 1 coin to unlock your first tier of priv.

                                          But that's just my suggestion.

                                              @Tea_Tae totally agree. It's insane. Also, it worsened the 'dummy chapters' issue. I usually laughed because some authors got to the extreme shamelessness of telling their readers 'I'm putting this dummy chapter here because WN is bad and won't pay me" completely tweaking the truth.

                                              Zero_Things They really should do something as you suggested. But if there's one thing I learned here, they never do what we suggest.

                                              I usually think their promotions are rushly planned (as the original winwin was), because you can see the ensuing problems and cheat opportunities from miles away, but they seem to think it's perfect and ready to go. Then when s**t hits the fan, they cut things for everyone, because a few cheated.

                                              What they did to Inkstone to prevent cheating, for instance, that's something that will cause more problems in the long term. They changed a fundamental tool but only put a note on Discord about it, that will be buried after some other posts. So new users will have to learn the hard way.

                                              But I digress...

                                              Anyway, good luck everyone, botted or not. You'll need more than bots and good writing to thrive... Persistence, relisience, and some painkillers, I mean.

                                                  Web Novel Novel Ask