I would like to ask fellow writers for opinions since I am new in the writing world. How do you decide whether you would like to pursue an exclusive contract route or a non-exclusive contract route?

From what I read in the forum and discord, it seems the distinction of these two contracts are:
1) Exclusive contract (Royalty contract)
• The novel’s locked chapters must be exclusively on the Webnovel site. (Basically, the author sells all rights, including that novel’s derivatives, to Webnovel.)
• A bigger portion of earnings. + MGS guarantee
• Easier to get selected for feature and search.

2) Non-exclusive contract (Or only Patreon)
• The author can publish on the Webnovel site and other sites such as Wattpad, Royal Road, Scribble Hub, Patreon, etc. (The author is still the owner of the novel.)
• A smaller share of earnings.
• More difficult to build a reader base here. The author needs to get readers from other sites to compensate for the smaller share. This is either an opportunity or a downside. I am not sure.

My situation is that I began writing a novel at the beginning of this year and published it on Webnovel. Then, I have a good chance to get a contract offer because I was lucky to win a WPC contest. But, I hesitate whether, when the time comes, I should sign or not. So far, in about 3 months, I have around 1k collections and 200k views. A very tiny fraction of the readers are willing to be my privileged readers if I decide to have ones, I guess. So, it is not a lot.

Originally, I began writing this fiction as a hobby and a way to improve my English, but I would like to maximize its monetization if I could. Therefore, I created this post to ask for your opinions and experiences.

I plan to continue to write this novel long term, no matter it would be popular or not, because I write the story that I would like to read myself. However, I could not keep my update rate as good webnovel authors should do (at least 2-3 times/week). I could do that rate only in the short term. But, most likely, my update rate would be 1 chapter per week in the long term because of my main job.

So, in this situation, I don’t know whether I should pursue an exclusive contract route or a non-exclusive contract route? I also don’t know whether Webnovel is my target market audience? (FYI, my novel is about reincarnation apocalypse (BL), consisting of game elements and kingdom-building.)

If you guys have any suggestions or could provide any thoughts, I deeply appreciate it.
🙏 🙏 🙏

    Veronica8

    It is a good question. I think as long as the author has not yet signed the exclusive contract, nothing is set in stone yet. I read them somewhere (not experience myself) that if you have been offered an exclusive one, you could ask for a non-exclusive one instead. However, these cases have been rare.

    Though, official answers from Webnovel CE are that there are definitely two types of contracts. You either could sign an exclusive one with Webnovel or ask for a non-exclusive one (you may have to proceed with a third party). Usually, this happens with authors that have been poached from other websites. Anyway, the CE also noted that the author could change his/her mind if the author first applied for a non-exclusive, then decided he/she want an exclusive after all.

        Veronica8 Yes, I agree. I think that is most likely the case. That is also why I put "you may have to proceed with a third party" in parenthesis. However, the answers from CE sometimes are not clear-cut.

            Yeah. My understanding, Webnovel themselves only offer the royalty contract directly into Inkstone. This one is the mine-is-mine type.

            EMP reach out to authors for a non exclusive type that they work on behalf of Webnovel, due to a partnership agreement they have with them. Sort of like being a service provider.

            From what I've gathered, it's why Non-Exclusive authors don't upload their contracted works using Inkstone, but on another tool that's something called story.io.

            AmateurAuthor I suggest you go non-exclusive. If you go exclusive, updating daily is the best way to get any worth in monetisation. Otherwise, you practically won't earn anything after the 4 months of MGS.

            With non-exclusive, you are less pressured to write and can slowly build your fanbase while earning some cash at the side

                Overlord_Venus
                I agree, there are quite a few fanfic authors on here who seem to be doing great with patreon, and they have no webnovel support whatsoever.

                Thus a if she does it smart, she will gain much more from a none exclusive contract, if she gains traction like them, she has both patreon and webnovel income, not to mention all the other potential sites particularly those with apps with a higher visitor rates that tend to allow for monitary gains.

                I'm sure we've all heard the phrase:
                "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

                I think there is wisdom in that, especially since any novel worth a damn is pirated and reposted on other sites, adding a few clever in story referrals to your patreon, wn username or a donation page will help redirect some of the pirated readers back to your control, even if it is with one time donations, tough the smartest thing would be setting up a user name for the most popular pirating sites simular to the one you use on webnovel, then posting your story there yourself.

                That way, you can gain control of your own story. Same with translations, Google translate is quite good these days, so posting your own novel in popular languages for translation with a rough translate there will help hijack the flow of otherwise would be pirated income through micro donations and the like.

                There are plenty who already do that to popular novels, not even bothering with a proper translation and are essentially gaining a patreon following for their translations.

                There is no reason for you to not tap into that same following by doing your own automated translations.

                If you use one single dedicated browser to just doing that, then you can simply open up, logged in and all for each account on each website to your uploading page to really ease and speed up the process.

                It pays if you want to do this stuff with an income from it, especially since you essentially have a bigger net to catch readers with if you use propper SEO for each site as all of them will likely be found by Google.

                We've already seen no support from wn for even exclusive authors who get pirated so there really no point not to get a bigger piece of the pie by spreading a wider net, then with donation pages and patreon linked on each site and your profile for your more generous readers.

                Add in some clever self advertising through having a fan art submission page if fanart is applicable that you keep linking on your public Pinterest and stuff and who knows how big it'll get.

                An exclusive contract would mean your only potential source of income is webnovel, whilst hundreds of other threads you could have persued yourself are leached from wn as your one source...

                Yes it's more effort on your part, but it has potentially higher and longer term gains if you put the elbow grease in.

                    thewallflower Anyone can apply for a Webnovel contract when his/her novel reaches certain criteria. Then, the CE will monitor your novel whether it has potential marketability. There is a pinned message in Instone discord that tells you how to apply for contract consideration.

                        a year later
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