Webnovel.Forum

I have been part of this platform and the writing community for roughly three years now while on occasion taking a hiatus or two for several months. Through this platform, I have been able to grow by quite a bit as an author and have even been able to assist other authors on their journeys.

However, I will no longer be part of the platform as an original author and will no longer be in any of the communities associated with the platform.

I am very disappointed in what both the author community and general community of the platform has become. There have always been instances where I did not agree with the platform whether due to the voting/review system, the bad (and not so bad) contract offers which you are NOT able to negotiate, or even being in WPCs where politics played a big role.

The final straw for me, was that my book the Unrivaled Creator which I was averaging 50 chapters per week on (for free and did it for the love of the craft) did not retain a gold place because many authors in the community went out of their way to reach out to many of this platform's staff because of some exchanges I had literally 6+ months ago. Not only did I have 3x the views, but also 3x the collections compared to my competitors.

I want to thank everyone who had made being on this platform a good experience, but at this point, I am completely done. And unfortunately, it is due to the actions of others that I feel I no longer have a place on this platform to share my writing or to help others. I did not fail WN, WN failed me.

-The Sleeping Tadpole
P.S. I am not going to be reading any responses or messages, but I am sure this will be deleted due to shining a light on what the platform has become compared to what it once was.

World building is rather vital, but you want to do it over time. Like every chapter maybe add 1-2 sentences and not going full out info dump. It is actually recommended as far as light novels that you leave quite a bit of the world out like it does not even exist until it is actually introduced. The reason is because if you info dump, that ruins the actual pacing of said story. I've seen novels where literally the first 10-12 chapters is just info dump. Keep it classy. :) -The Sleeping Tadpole

Smh, it literally says point blank in the contract that WN takes 50% cut.

Dan, you do not understand this person's question. Seriously, calm down, and get off this thread because you are causing problems for no reason if you clearly read my response.

SpadesPenndragon WN reserves the right to all of your future works to give you a first offer if you sign a contract, so you must keep things like that in mind when thinking about writing with the goal to sign a contract. As far as the idea of a novel, I have seen really bad novel concepts get millions of views and I have seen amazing novel concepts get not so much. It will always be determined by if you are willing to release at minimum 1 chapter per day.

MintyMintyMilkTea Normally I would not say this, but do not listen to the Dan fellow. He is unable to do simple math and does not know how to properly read a contract. You are correct that you can earn percentage wise more with Patreon (95/5 split) versus WN (50/50 split) however, WN does offer free promotion for their contracted novels so you would only have to worry about writing versus searching for paid readers/supporters.

Go to the app settings and instead of logging out, it allows you to delete your account. I am unsure the method on desktop.

It is strange that everyone is trying to argue a "must read X chapters" what if the novel is literally all lower case words, no punctuation, spelling errors, etc? Oh let's pretend that such novels do not exist.....

The reason the "experience" system exists is because it makes users remain on the platform for longer, helps authors who are trending by forcing readers to leave a review, comment, like, read, etc.

The main issue is that authors who feel that they deserve 5 stars no matter what, will always complain about anything lower which would make WN's jobs much harder. Why would WN remove a system that is currently in place to force readers to interact more, and why would they want to stir the pot with authors who think they are perfect?

Dan_Ryder They do percentage wise. Does not mean they "generate" more, but percentage wise patreon user make more.

Royal Road readers are much higher quality fans, but there is a negative with the platform. Web Novel is the perfect platform for those who want to earn money without needing to worry about the quality of their work. Literally to an extent where you could have horrific grammar but as long as you write enough chapters every week, the readers might even look past it and continue paying you.

With Royal Road, quality is LITERALLY everything to the point where those who want to see you succeed, will point out every little error so you could fix it and improve on it and as an author. So before you decide Web Novel or Royal Road, you have to really ask yourself if a grammar nazi will give you a pass on your writing to a severe degree, otherwise the chances of you even building an audience on Royal Road is incredibly slim.

I can understand if you want to go to Royal Road because yes the Patreon system can technically make you more money, BUT are you really going to trust yourself so much not to possibly just post on both as a normal author and grow as an author and understand what to expect before deciding?

These are all questions you need to think about before even thinking about getting paid for your work. :) -The Sleeping Tadpole

SimmeringHours
Thank you so much for the explanation! I am almost up to chapter 80 (end of the first arc of the novel) but forget that this would only be day 12 writing and releasing on this platform. I suppose since everyone has had more time compared to me, that it is only right that they could get up to so many views.

P.S. Almost at 1k collections so glad that means I am doing fantastic! :) -The Sleeping Tadpole

In before @Dan_Ryder cries in a corner because someone gave a genuine review that was not 5 stars on his novel. #GrowSomeBalls #StopBeingSoChildish

I was wondering if anyone could help explain something to me. My novel is the Unrivaled Creator and will be the novel I am asking about in my question.

Currently I have 78 chapters public and 160,300 views. My question is, I have noticed that there are many novels with less chapters or around the same amount, but their total views are WAY more, like some are 700,000+. Does this mean that my novel is not very popular compared to the other novels?

-The Sleeping Tadpole

You either need to join the web novel author discord and reach out to an editor that way, or you need to go onto inkstone on the bottom left hand side for editor support, and you need to ask for one that way. However, if you novel currently has less than 50,000 words, they most likely will not be just handing you one. I believe depending on the novel they may make an exception, but that should be the first goal before asking for one because that is usually the point where they send you an offer. :) -The Sleeping Tadpole

As I've mentioned before, I will review swap once said author reviews my novel. No point in going through the hassle if no one returns the favor. :)

Have a lawyer look at the contract first and foremost. Also, if you want your work to also remain on Wattpad, I believe you would only be able to take the non exclusive. Non exclusive you get paid less, but can still self publish for example on Amazon. Also, you lose your copyright if you sign the exclusive but normally Web Novel when "poaching authors" from other platforms, would only offer non exclusives. Be aware, you could make quite a bit off of your novels by signing a contract and will receive free promotional pushes, but it blocks you in the future for example if a television studio wants to turn your book into a series. Not that the offer could not be accepted, but Web Novel would be involved every step of the way (which in itself, would ruin said offer).

That is also true, but to be fair, there are many contracted novels that are not really that great to begin with while there are many that are basically a little boy's wet dream written on paper.

So as much as that is correct that they are just signing so many people who are making content for them to use however they wish (if non exclusive contract was not chosen), it still does not mean that it would be making them "a killing" in the future especially since even Amazon has over 1 million authors in their network at this point.

Still, as I mentioned, they are not really "spending any money" on the contracted novels, so a profit even a small one in an extra revenue stream really is not that bad. I do see it as maybe being a giant in the future though if they are able to continue poaching authors off of Wattpad and other potential platforms.

Whoever chooses to leave a review on my novel, I will be returning the favor. :) -The Sleeping Tadpole
https://www.webnovel.com/book/17498636005177705

So WN was created to bring what we refer to as "translated novels" to the west. The company is owned by QI who is then owned by one of the biggest companies in China called Tencent.

What everyone needs to understand is, WN was NOT created for originals and it was NOT created to promote "the best raw works". It is literally a subsidiary of a company that tells them what novels to translate at which times regardless of what anyone using the platform thinks.

For all we know, novels are chosen because QI has bigger plans for said "cliche" novels whether it is because they inked a really good deal with said author, or because they are putting money into it whether to create a manga, webtoon, etc. Like would you as a company rather push a novel you would make more income from no matter what, or take a risk on a different one just because a few thousand readers (who may or may not spend even a penny on it) claims that it is amazing and want more?

So with everyone upset that WN is not translating the novels they voted for, at least now you can understand the reasoning behind it. Now as far as originals aka Western created novels, were NEVER supposed to be on this platform. It is just that WN felt that instead of only being a literal "promotional platform for big brother", at least they could start to begin owning their own copyrights to an extent and to generate more income. Due to the traffic and readers the translated novels were bringing in, there was no reason not to allow originals to be uploaded to retain said audience similar to how YouTube rewards creators who have high retention rates.

Sure, it is awesome that even an indie author like me could use WN to build an audience and receive feedback, but it DOES NOT mean that the platform was created to cater to those like myself. It is literally a platform that found an additional revenue stream close enough to the original plans to work it all out.

So hey, I would just tell everyone to be grateful that every once in a while there is actually good content being translated, and that in down times, there are some really awesome original works you could try in the meantime. It is much better than nothing, AND even some translated novels technically could be read all the way through without spending a penny including many non premium originals. Like, I understand it can get annoying at times, but you are literally arguing with "free stuff" that is not complete garbage. :) -The Sleeping Tadpole

I just think that if there are good critiques on novels and real ratings were left alone, that there would be a much higher meaning to a book that is 4/5 stars as an example. At the moment, it feels like if a book is under 4.7 stars, it might as well be 2 stars. However, if the best books on the platform were at maximum a 4.5/5 stars rating, then all of the sudden I am willing to be more inclined into giving a novel rated 4/5 a chance.

As it currently stands, anything under 4 stars is considered enough to not even read the synopsis and anything between 4.2-4.5 is still somewhat in that category while you have spam 5 star reviews on novels that should be under 3 stars. This is the same reason why some authors who average 4.5/5 star reviews (which are mostly 5 star spam reviews) average less than 3 stars on a different platform like Amazon because 3 stars on Amazon in most cases mean a 4.5+ stars on web novel.

As an author, I would not mind receiving genuine reviews even if it dropped my novel's rating because it would push me to do better. Alas, I hope one day web novel will change in that direction but the first step would be not allowing authors to remove reviews that are real and not spam like majority do. We authors deserve to at least give our readers that right since they are giving our novels a chance to read. :)