Hmmm... I don't know how should I say it. But u know, as author I, myself need money for living. U couldn't expect someone give u free stuff all times without give something back right? Even if we write or translate something as hobby, we still need support for that. U couldn't tell our dear translator and author work and make something all the time for free without giving compensation. Someone need to live and eat!

So... It's not always bad thing about some donations or something like payment. It's necessary if u want our dear translator, author and staff maintenance their site.

At last they profits u with something else.

Unless u want them to live without got the payment as compensation of their times, work hard to gave us stories and die without anything!

Oke, u don't want to pay then don't blame them for not give u any new chapter as soon as possible cuz they need to work other things for live and get some money so they wonna die and still healthy for write something.

Some of them write for life!
We need to live and eat! So we can do our job well.

But, it's not like they didn't gave u some free stuff right? U could still read any without really pay. Yeaahhh even u still need to wait for that. But at last it fair...

Read free okay, but wait for sometimes
Read, support and help our dear author and translator with donated or payment, u can enjoy the new chapter quickly.

    I have no issue with them charging for quality entertainment. I don't expect to read any book for free unless it is from the library. I do have an issue with the amount they are charging to stay current with the premium titles.

    The amount of content that any one person can consume in a day is finite. That is why business models like Netflix and Kindle Unlimited can charge a flat rate and still make money.

    Therefore, I think Qidian has a very unenlightened and greedy business model. I doubt that they will die from this, but they may just have to adapt at some point.

      Authors/Website Owners needs money to keep their work going. I think the issue is the amount they are charging.
      But you could still just wait no?

        itsyaboii Sure. I can wait and/or read what is free. Waiting is no problem. The only downside is that I'm not supporting the authors and translators that way. So the victim of predatory pricing is not me, but the authors and translators.

          I agree everything is no free, authors and translators need money, i did not mind spend money....
          BUT THE COST FOR 1CHAPTER IS F***** EXPENSIVE IF YOU CONVERT IT TO $....
          I DID NOT MIND IF 1 CHAPTER COST ONLY 0.02$/CHAPTER NOT 0.2$/CHAPTER

            TaiXai hey bro if you actually read up on it you would know that them premium chapters are chapters that are early release such as patron chapters. The chapter's that are free are the normal release ones.

            On patreon you have adavanced chapters but in premium you haven't . Premium didn't give you much (a few chapters when it turned premium ), but release chapter pre week is the same as before premium only with that you must pay for it . You have 7 free chapters per week when before it was more . On patreon if TL have more patrons he/she relase more free chapters per week and adavanced chapters are given to patrons.

              mihaita98 Since it's a dollar for 50 spirit stones, and premium chapters cost 10 spirit stones, give or take, then you get 5 chapters for a dollar, or $0.2 per chapter. It's simple maths...

                  On a serious note 20 cents or $.20, however you want to put it, is pretty friggin expensive. LoHP-Library of Heaven's Path- would be $12 a month and that's just for one book, it may actually be even more expensive because I'm using the 10ss per chapter factor, yet I've never seen it go below 11ss. Sure you could use your free ss to pay for that one book, but then what happens when you want to read the other popular books in your library? You have 2 choices at that point; pay for more ss, or hold off on them. Personally, I'd rather not spend god knows how much to stay up to date on all the books in my library.

                    Kaighn
                    Although I doubt the validity of this claim, LHP's page claims 15 chapters a week, and an year has a little over 52 weeks. Given 12 ss per chapter (The reason I gave 10 earlier is because there are novels charging around 6-8 per chapter, bringing down the overall average. LHP charges above average, so 12), and 2 cents per ss, disregarding the free spirit stones, we get:
                    .
                    .
                    .
                    Drumroll please.
                    .
                    .
                    .
                    Just over $187.2 an year, or $15.6 a month, 3.6 dollars weekly, and over 50 cents daily.
                    Just for one novel.
                    On the plus side, we get around 20 spirit stones daily (check-in is 9-10 on average, 5 for energy and 5 for power), so at the same rate of 2 cents per stone, that's 40 cents.
                    Thus, if you got lucky draws, watched ads and checked in regularly, you could follow one premium novel for free.
                    Any more and you either have to use multiple accounts, recommend and login as fake accounts (Each account is worth over 200 ss, 4 dollars for spending a couple minutes filling out a form on Gmail), or paying large amounts of money.

                        AidaHanabi You know that the one to suffer most are the translators, right? They earn less from the paywall than before. Waaaaay less. I even read that translators dont receive any share of spirit stone related income. (I read that here, so it can be true or false, idk yet)

                        The ones profiting the most is the publisher. How much do you think costs a website like this? Simply a forum and a reader-like software.

                        The creation costs the most, space on the web itself (and traffic) is pretty cheap.

                            I think the way to go is to have different free chapter release per account. Correct me if I am wrong, but i think the current scheme is really hard on the occasional spender.

                            E.g. if i like a novel and it currently has 100 locked chapters then I proceed to unlock them all, the free 1 chapter/week will only caught up with me after 100 weeks.

                            Not only that means that the app becomes (pseodo) full pay to read app, it discourage me from ever buying any stones.

                            It would be great if I still got new chapter per week AFTER I do the purchase. This scheme will also help Qidian to hoard more $ as occasional spender will be more likely to purchase stones.

                            *but then again, I'm not quite sure if the free chapter release really works the way I thought. Can anyone confirm?

                              I am not going to post links to outside webpages, thus I'll mention that there are extremely good webnovels/webserials, written in English, that are amazing.

                              My first example: Worm. Google it. Millions of words. Best super-hero, super-heroine webnovel I have ever read.

                                These are very affordable rates for those who enjoy reading web novels which I assume that's most of us except for sporadic trolls.

                                ishallsealtheheavens

                                If the math is correct at $0.0198 per stone based on the 50 stones for $0.99 rate, you will pay ~$356.4 for 1500 chapters given a chapter cost 12 spirit stones.

                                info: One chapter is 1965 words ─ rough estimates, give or take; 1965 words x 1500 chapters = 2,947,500 words

                                So $356.4 spent on web novels on Qidian equates to buying 38 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone books at $8.86 each (Amazon's price for paperback). You will pay $336.68 for thirty-eight $8.86 books.

                                info: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is 76,944 words x 38 books = 2,923,872 words

                                Is it still worth it? Kind of.

                                Now consider that Qidian authors only get a fraction of that money to support their living conditions? I say "living conditions" because these authors sometimes don't make enough to live in luxury much less help their family. They're not JK Rowling, but they no doubt deserve as much for the entertainment they bring me.

                                You don't get FREE chapters from print novels like Harry Potter, but you sure do with Web Novels at Qidian. That's FREE as in Free Samples at Costco.

                                Here's a quick question:

                                Would you pay five bucks for a cup of coffee? What about to eat out? Or for some sweets?

                                Answer:

                                Yes. Yess. Yesss...

                                But how come paying to relax and de-stress from reality then becomes unreasonable? Hell, I pay chefs at restaurants to cook for me, tips to waiters, and coins to homeless panhandlers. But sometimes I don't like on Qidian.

                                On Qidian, if I'm broke and without money which often is the case as I'm struggling, I wait to read the free chapters. I hope that the time I do buy spirit stones, I can support my favorite authors, so they can continue to pump out quality stories without stress. I know stress kills creativity which will kill my chance to disconnect from reality for a bit before I log back into the Matrix.

                                So...

                                With that in mind, is it still worth it?

                                You cant even get that kind of deal at the dollar store. Holy cows!

                                And the dollar store doesn't even give free samples. Crazy.

                                Now back to you:

                                Should I employers pay you for YOUR skills?

                                PS: To Qidian, please do a better job of supporting your authors, translators, and customers. Everyone deserves to be treated fairly even with slight compromises. Without authors and customers, your platform will significantly suffer unless you're not concern about other sharks in the open sea. For example, many of us are not as loyal to Qidian's brand as we are towards the authors and translators, and if a competitor disrupts this space, we will likely support the better in regards to your treatments stated earlier.

                                  It doesn't matter if webnovel dies if they're not making money

                                    wiman I would rather read 38 different books for my money than use it on one book, written by a non-experienced author, filled with cliches and fillers. Your word count system you use to judge these books ade invalid as word counts are artificially inflated by most authors to increase profits (I believe they get paid based on word count). If someone could truly drop a 300 dollars on a random book, then I mist say, dang you have a good life.

                                      wiman

                                      I don't particularly mind paying for SS. However your math seems wrong to me.
                                      You say 12 SS for 1 chapter but use 1965 words per chapter. This is not logical since from what translators seem to say, it is 1 SS for 200 words. So if you take 12 SS for 1 chapter, you should take the number of words corresponding to the price which is 2400 words.
                                      With correction, we have $356.4 for 3,600,000 words.
                                      According to your stats, it is about 46 Harry Potter books and comes up to $407.56.

                                      So reading on QI is less expansive than buying Harry Potter. The difference in price (12% lesser than JK Rowling) can be explained by the average difference in story quality (considering all the authors publishing here).

                                        I get authors need to eat but the thing is that when one man (or woman) simply free writes with maybe one editor mostly for spell checking the quality just isn’t worth the price considering physical books are not only better but also even cheaper than a webnovel. Physical books have entire teams working for months or even yrs fixing mistakes and improving the entire story. So who would pay more for a worse book? The only reason I got into webnovels is because it was free. If I had to pay I’d leave and play games or read real books. Both better and probably cheaper.

                                        Web Novel Novel Ask