(SARCASM) You seem to forget that a woman's worth is solely defined by the man she is married or tied to (SARCASM)

The FL novels on vote are all garbage because of this thought paradigm. They believe that romance, marriage and love are the only way a woman can find purpose in this world. They also reinforce the idea that a woman cannot grow with her own powers. Some overpowered soul (I'm looking at you head of assassins, award-winning researchers, etc.) has to take over her body, otherwise, the body is useless.

There was this novel about how this woman regressed in time and decided to divorce her scum husband (choosing to raise her daughter by herself). And not three chapters later, she was in a relationship with the ML and was on track to a marriage. Like WTF was the whole point of divorce if she is just going to get together with another man?

This concept is executed flawlessly in this Transmigrated into a Parvenu's Ex-Wife in the 90s. The FL divorces, but then actually takes the time to build herself up and finds purpose outside of romance before getting together with the ML who surprisingly isn't a cold-faced, sharp-jawlined adonis. Both ML and FL are ordinary looking, have their own stories and act like actual adults when they get together.

Here's how the web novel publishing platforms work.
Some individual starts writing a novel that has an interesting concept. A lot of people like it and it rises up the charts. Some organisation that "grooms" web novel writers notices this and tells the writers slaving under them to output X number of chapters with the same concept hoping that one of them will stick and gain popularity. When it does, they starts squeezing it for as much money as possible.

Example: Sign-in Buddha Palm was admittedly the very first sign-in novel. After people liked it and it became famous, you started having similar novels cropping up with sign-in genre. This is also true with certain tropes like Truck-kun and demon kings, hunters towers and dungeons, reincarnated into an otome game-esque starts, reincarnated as villainess/villain/side-character, hidden character with special skils/assassin/cultivator reincarnate as high-school or college student.

In the end, it is all about commerciability. If you don't want to see a trope, stop reading novels with the trope when they pop up. The trend will pass. As long as there is still demand for a certain trope, more and more garbage novels will keep popping up ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Dzeeck Man... Have you ever read Moshuko Tensei? Dat shizz is uber child porno! Dem Japanese have crazy fetishes dayuuum

Tomoyuki Its a shit way for authors to provide active exposition (passive is when the author writes the exposition in 3rd person or narrational format).

But it can often get really out of hand, especially in romance novels when you have those "netizen" live commentary and "water-army" bullshit. I don't even read those anymore cuz I know what's happening in there.

Most fanfictions in this platform are inherently wish-fulfilment. They're just the mindless ramblings of an unfulfilled simp fantasizing about laying pipe to a 2D character. If that is the purpose of your fanfiction, just write it in a diary and burn it. I don't want to read this shit!

There are very few fanfiction works that actually have a good story. And the ones that do often get submerged in the cesspool due to poor readership. Because every other person going into the fanfiction section is an unfulfilled simp fantasizing about laying pipe to a 2D character, except they don't have the capacity to write a story themselves!

Anyways that's it for my rant...

On one end you have this, on the other you have Japanese LN and WN that literally describe the entire plot in the book's title itself.

"So I accidentally died and was born into another world into the hero's party, but I had the weakest skill and was banished only to become the most overpowered farmer!" by - Author-sama

1. Portraying China as a capitalistic nation with a plethora of overbearing CEOs around every corner. Lol the Chinese government will 100% take away these idol-like CEOs and run them through an internment camp or put them under house arrest cuz they're more famous/powerful than Papa Xi himself.

2. Bashing on Buddhist and Non-secular sects in Cultivation novels (bald donkeys, etc.). The Communist party has a hard-on against any and all religious content. If you look at Chinese history, they've done some brutal shit with the Buddhist monastaries, and even now with the Uyghurs.

3. "Traditional Chinese martial arts OP!" Yea... no...

4. Bashing on the system because it's "stupid"/"useless". As if having an OP AF cheat for simply existing in a world wasn't enough... The protagonists are never satisfied with their lives. Even before death, they were probably those ass hats that complain about unfair workplace practices when they actually never did an ounce of work, to begin with. "The last thing I remember was working overtime for a job my boss told me to do" Yeah right! Get the fuck outta here!

5. DiNg ObNoXiOuS sYsTeM sOuNd!

6. Systems that basically move the plot forward by providing extremely leading quests. Man, I even read this novel where the MC literally does nothing, dude's just a slave to the system (and not the fun kind where the system actually takes over the man's body, which was an aight story IMO).

7. Virgin boys that blow a girl's mind away with their superior "sword work"...

8. "You girl! I have never been rejected before... Now you have my attention! I am going to now proceed to act like a total misogynist and gaslight you into becoming my woman. Of course, it's alright because I'm hot."

9. Jade beauties.... just... no...

10. A mentally challenged or handicapped character becoming alright because they were simply hiding their strength for the perfect moment. The worst offenders are when the FMC's system or OP skill from past life straight up "cures" a character's autism. Like WTF?!

Annsome Don't forget the OP aphrodisiac that turns people into sex-crazed animals!

Benny_Manatee
I guess so. But these novels don't bother to elaborate on whether they intend to make it a polyamorous relationship or not. Harem is almost always defined as the MC having a plethora of female love interests. And the MC never bothers to choose one because he can't "bear to break the other women's hearts," which is a cop-out.

Why must those women have to share the same man while the man does not allow the women to indulge themselves with other men? Does that even make sense?

And in most cases, the author indicates that the women are fine with sharing the man because they feel that the man "cannot possibly be limited to one woman". And to that... Why? Why do they have such low self-esteem, and why do these so-called morally upright MCs take advantage of these women with such low self-esteem?

A_Gitagon
To truly benefit from Webnovel's contract you need to have a regular upload schedule (I mean daily uploads) with a min of 1.5k words per chapter.

On top of that, you must have a work that is monetisable and marketable. I'm talking about the generic stuff you see on the front page of this website, because it is those kinds of work that get a stable viewership.

You get paid based on the amount of coins expended on your work. So the most chapters you release and the longer they are, the more you will benefit.

So I'd recommend you evaluate your work according to these basic parameters if you are considering signing the contract for this to be your primary job (cuz I know a lot of authors actually live off of their work on this platform).

I'm not saying that you should not do it if you don't meet these parameters. In fact, I'm contracted and I don't have a daily upload schedule. I don't get paid much. But even a few pennies offer a lot of motivation for me to write on.

Happy_AltRight Ah fellow Daoist! Are you looking for an alliance?

My 'Living in Squalor' sect is looking for a new elder to lead the Empty Wallet Peak! Would you care to join?

WoodenDrumRhythm

For me, till around chapter 52 I was seeing intermittent readers and nothing too substantial. But on my 53rd chapter, the reader counts and interactions just started to blow up for some reason. I upload at 3ch/wk so that means my work started to gain more traction around week 17-18.

I think it may have been because I changed my front cover to be something less artistic and more visible when viewed at smaller resolutions (because when browsing on mobile devices or the website, the user only sees a small version of your cover). I also made my cover more descriptive of the type of plot.

Old Cover
New Cover

Tbh though, I was mainly writing for fun, so I didn't feel demotivated when my work didn't receive a lot of reads, reviews, or votes at the early stages. But I can understand your frustration. All I can suggest for you is to evaluate your front cover as well as your book title. They are what the user sees first and will pretty much determine if they are going to click your book or not. Try to ask yourself, "Would I click this book if I saw this in the wild?"

Next, I would also suggest that you check your tags. Try to avoid highly specific ones like: #specialcultivationmethod and opt for more general and wide

This is all the suggestions I can offer. Keep writing, friend!

Another suggestion, if you are planning to write a novel with a good character, don't post it on this platform. Because webnovel is literally flooded with the SAME kind of generic, bland novels that are conducive to multiple clicks and quick reads. There is no depth.

Unfortunately this is how these web publishing platforms work. Someone finds a formula that works, and a room full of chimps start clacking away at the keyboard releasing the same shit except maybe the character names are different.

Like, somehow 'Sign-in Buddha Palm' found some success and then BOOM we have n-number of novels with the protagonist lazing away in the cold palace or some shit like that. There was one where the protagonist was a eunuch, and I thought that was gonna have some impact on the story (maybe as part of the comedy) but then he does a total body rebirth-no-Jutsu and grows some balls (literally in this case).

Anyways, as I was saying, if ya'll are writing interesting characters, post it on a platform where your work won't get drowned in a sea of shit.

Birth of the Demonic Sword

I think you get some kind of exp if you write reviews.
So you see people spamming either full 5 star or 1 star reviews as well just for that exp.

Also, the review swaps here are mostly garbage. I review swapped with 3 different people. I actually read their novel's first 5-10 chapters (depending on the average length of a chapter) before writing a review that actually pertained to their work. They didn't even bother to read mine and just straight up gave it a 5 or a 4.5. I mean it's all well and good, but it feels a little patronising. It's like when you tell a little kid that their drawing is good without looking at it.

You aren't encouraging writers by blindingly writing a glowing review without even reading the work.

Shubhangi_Kene
Imo harems are trash as long as they have a purpose to the story. Most, if not all, Male Lead novels that have these harems are just there to act as wish fulfilment for the author.

I can tell you for a fact that it's downright impossible to split your love fairly (romantic type) between multiple people. Its a recipe for disaster.

This doesn't mean that I like novels with reasonable harems in them. They're still trash, just recyclable. If I see a harem tag, I skip. I don't even tolerate reverse harems. Those are equally garbage in my eyes.

Shubhangi_Kene Don't even bring up Mahabharat! I'm still salty about how they treated my boi Karna.
Dude was literally the son of the Sun god, yet he got the short end of the stick at every single turn. And his fricken brother killed him by shooting him in the back.

I was this close to writing a fan fic where the dude got regressed in time and then goes around murdering everyone who wronged him.

I'd like to recommend my own work.

The Good Teacher

Genre: Fantasy - Comedy, Action, Adventure, Slice-of-Life

It's kind of a parody of a few famous CN in this platform (like LotHP and Absolute Great Teacher) with a comedic twist.

I'm aiming for a feel-good atmosphere overall by making it slice-of-life-ish.

Summary

Guy Larks was famous in his original world for his widespread charity work in poverty-stricken and war-torn nations.
He was especially known for his efforts in developing schools and educational facilities for children.

"Even with all the good work I did, I ended up dying young..." he lamented as his soul drifted into the void.

Plot Twist! He was given a second chance in a different world. A world with magic!

In this new world, our protagonist enters the body of a down-by-the-dumps teaching apprentice, who had given up on his life.

Ride along with our protagonist, as he continues his pursuit in this magical world to spread his mantra: "Low potential, doesn't mean no potential."

Wait! What about the protagonist's cheat? Every transmigrator needs a cheat system... right?

Worry not! Our hero has his own system. It doesn't do much apart from storing books though...

Featuring:
- Chapters with the MC struggling, trying and sometimes failing to figure out solutions by himself.
- Friendly banter between his benefactor who resides inside his head.
- Another generic CN transmigrator who cruises along with an OP AF cheat.
- Missed face-slapping opportunities.
- Meta humour.
- Legit science!

KatherineMay If I'm being honest, the whole sign-in genre is so stupid and pointless. Its total wish fulfillment of not doing anything at all and getting everything in return.
Still, since you've asked, I also agree with Grand_Void_Daoist . 80 Years of Signing in at the Cold Palace seems to be superior to the other sign-in novels (Which all suck btw!)