Evidence? Proof?
On the Qidian Chinese site, Qidian pays author 70% royalties. Which mean a reader pays $10, the author get $7 and Qidian get $3
ORIGINAL NOVELS that are most likely to get a contract
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If you think about it, Webnovel is just a middleman (platform) between the READERS and the ENGLISH AUTHORS.
Taking 30-35% cut is pretty profitable.
See Apple and Google taking 30% cut as the middleman (platform) for paid apps.
Cost to Webnovel for accepting English novels: some servers, some bandwidth, some staff
Revenue to Webnovel for accepting English novels: ~30-35% cut of revenue
There is no translation cost when it come to English Originals. This is a huge plus. The biggest expense for Webnovel by a very very large margin is the cost of translation.
Anyway, I would love to see the English Originals Novels contract when it finally leaked........maybe my prediction will not be off by that much...
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ssound5rs the platform belongs to qidian, all the readers "belongs" to qidian. Platform + readers > author as an author need readers to make money and a platform to upload his work + most of the authors are NOT pro and if they are going to sign a contract they need will proofeaders and editors and most likely those people will come from qidian. Proof ? Evidence ? Sorry but thats just logic ...Have you seen how Qidian works ?
Edit: by qidian i mean webnovel
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I think you should see QI as a Network who pay a Youtuber. Generally, small youtubers get 30% of their ad revenue at the end (without counting taxes) and big ones 60%.
So I think, at most an author, on QI, could get 60% of ad revenue but most contract would first be at 30%. If you have already written some popular book and you are a popular author, then QI would most likely give you 50% to 60% of ad revenue.
Anyway, no one will reveal the detail of their contract so, as long as you don't become a premium author, you won't know the reality.
No author has been offered a contract yet so how would you know that "Most of the money will go to the webnovel and not the author"? Do you have a time machine that travel to the future and thus you know this in advance?
I base my educated guess on what Qidian is paying authors in China. Qidian authors in China get 70% royalties.
It is likely that English authors will get a large cut of the revenue split.
Here are what some platform are paying the content creators.
Amazon and Apple pays 70% royalties on ebooks sold in their stores.
Barnes and Noble pays 65% royalties on ebooks.
Apple and Google pays 70% of paid apps.
Spotify and Apple Music pays 70% for music streaming
Youtube pays 55% of ad revenue.
They have? Could you post a link or some kind of quotation to prove that this is the case? I'm kind of iffy since I haven't seen that kind of remark yet.
Not trying to be a jerk or anything, but I'm a bit skeptical.
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ssound5rs they why do you say author will get 70% and webmovel 30% are you from the future ? Amazon ? So what ? A book from amazon costs 30$ and here you need to pay more than 1000$ No? Qidian != webnovel. And dont start we have free chapter per and ss because everyone knows that this not going to last for long
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ssound5rs, a really dumb guy (I'm told he smells of elderberries, too) who actually looks at industry trends and historical data: Well, it looks like the online fiction industry, both in China and America, offer somewhere around a 70% royalty, including the mother branch of this very same company, so I'm going to ballpark it at that.
UnknownDaoist and Ideal, Master Prognosticators and Men of Taste: LOL U CAN'T KNOW THAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING LOOKING AT A CRYSTAL BALL LOL WEBNOVEL'S GONNA HOG IT ALL AND EVERYBODY WILL GET NOTHING BECAUSE WE HAVE A HATE-ON FOR QIDIAN AND YOU CAN'T MAKE US SAY OTHERWISE.
...
A platform that does not offer competitive value is a platform doomed to be usurped by those that will. Period. This goes for all kinds of industries. "Value", of course, is not merely royalty payouts though.
Traditional print publishing rarely offers royalty rates above 10%, for the record (and 5% was extremely common for a very long time). This is how they've worked for the better part of a century now, and for the mainstream, it still works, if just on sheer inertia. The publishers assumed that online publishing would be a mere fad and that they would always hold the leverage. They were wrong, and now Amazon is laughing all the way to the bank even as they have to hand off 35%-70% of the money every time an independently published ebook is sold (note: 70% is only the rate if you're in KDP Select and give Amazon exclusivity, many folks settle for 35% in order to not have to lock themselves into exclusivity, and they still make good money from it).
Everybody who says "we don't know what the contracts say" is right in that regard. We don't. I also have zero inclination to believe that webnovel is going to just give crap away out of the goodness of their heart. They're a business and need to make money. But so is Amazon. So are many others. Companies that act Chaotic Evil and screw their suppliers to the point of not wanting to do business at all don't have a supply for very long. There's a happy medium of screwing us just enough that we can tolerate it. I'm not going to get a harem picked from a stable of A&F door boys or a television series out of this. That's okay (well, I mean it is, despite how nice the abs on those door boys are and how sad I am without them, but I'll just have to cry myself to sleep at night and deal with it like an adult).
I'll be the first to admit that China Literature's international presence has been... less than superlative. They've had a pretty rocky start in the translation community. They're also still starting out and learning how things here in the West are a good bit different. But since they're only getting a non-exclusive grant in the license and since I can always take my ball and go home, I'm willing to let them stumble a bit to get it right (could they just "screw me" and continue distributing back in China? Yeah, I guess, if they're Stupid Evil and ignore their existing enormous slush pile back at home just to specifically curate me there. I don't see that it matters since I don't know a lick of Chinese and would never operate in that market myself anyway). Nobody else is paying me so much as a red cent for this crap, after all. And if they don't figure it out, well... someone will. And they'll be the Amazon of the space and we'll flock there. But right now it is what it is, and I'm willing to take the risk.
Sorry that this went a bit long. I don't know what vintage of urine certain people received in their cheerios to care this much about a program they're not participating in, but it's getting rather old and annoying to get told what to do by them, so I had to vent a little. If there's a superior platform out there that does this sort of thing and does it "right", you guys should be out there promoting that instead of wasting your time donning a sandwich board proclaiming QIDIAN IS SATAN as you impotently scream on the street corner here. The people who are likely to get contracts here have enough reading comprehension to know their risks, let them make the call when the time comes.
It could all be a big mistake. But that's not really your call, because you're not producing anything except piss and vinegar when the market here is stories people want to read. If you do manage to use that time machine to acquire a knowledge of how they're going to really put the screws in, though, I'd appreciate it if you took a moment to get me some lottery numbers while you're at it.
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70% is only the rate if you're in KDP Select and give Amazon exclusivity, many folks settle for 35% in order to not have to lock themselves into exclusivity, and they still make good money from it).
that is not correct
You don't need to enroll in KDP Select (Kindle Unlimited) in order to get 70% royalties on most territories.
Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India are the exception in which if you want to get 70% royalties, you need to be in KDP Select.
https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200634500#70%
70% Royalty Option
If you choose this Royalty option for your Digital Book, it will apply to sales of your Digital Book to customers in the following Available Sales Territories:
Andorra
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Canada
France
Germany
Gibraltar
Guernsey
Ireland
Isle of Man
Italy
Jersey
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Monaco
The Netherlands
New Zealand
San Marino
Switzerland
Spain
United Kingdom
United States
Vatican City
*70% Royalty in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India. Digital Books enrolled in KDP Select will be eligible to earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and India.
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CKTalon (QI translator and staff member) mentioned it in one of the posts that QI will offer contract to English authors.
You can search for it in his postings.
A quick search and I found it
https://forum.webnovel.com/d/5660-will-we-got-pay
CKtalon You will be invited by QI to sign a contract for monetization if they deem your work as having potential.
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I am not from the future. I don't know what QI will offer. If you haven't noticed, I wrote this in the opening post:
My best guess on royalties/revenue sharing on that contract (just an educated guess by me so take it with a grain of salt....since I might be way off)
Ad-revenue: authors get 60% - QI take 40%
Chapter purchase through spirit stone currency: authors get 65% - QI take 35%
Donation to the author through spirit stone currency: authors get 75% - QI take 25% (this feature of donating to authors will come out soon I believe)
My educated guess is based on what Qidian in China pay author which is 70% royalties.
As for ad-revenue sharing, it is based on what Youtube pay (which is 55%)
You on the other hand wrote this:
UnknownDaoist Most of the money will go to the webnovel and not the author.
without any evidence to back it up, which is why I called you out on it.
If you can provide any evidence to back up your argument I would love to hear it.
ssound5rs That's what I get for not having read the fine print since before 2015. I stand corrected. :)
Even if they were offering tradpub money, though, the real point I'm aiming for is that Ideal and UnknownDaoist are alarmists operating from a position of bad faith with their only argument being "I have a hateboner for QI and you can't change my mind about that". You can't reason people out of a position they haven't reasoned themselves into in the first place. In their worldview, QI is a Stupid Chaotic Evil corporation that kicks puppies and strangles infants for the lulz, so it's obvious it's going to steal everything and give nothing.
Back here in the real world, we can appreciate that companies who act that way to their suppliers don't get supplied for very long and that the value of rights in digital publishing already has years of precedent behind it, something that gives authors leverage when it does come time to come to the table to negotiate. QI want this platform to succeed, and among groups like authors, part of that requires having success stories. Obviously, contracts will be the exception rather than the rule, but there will be enough of them and QI will pay well enough for people to want to chase that carrot. :)