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[SailusGebel]

I can't help you with data anymore than I already have but I will explain a little bit further in case it might help you to understand a bit better, the data I have presented is not an end all be all, it is what I, a person with no experience with this kind of stuff, could collect in a reasonable amount of time about a topic with this much nuance. My conclusion wasn't based solely on 'the numbers' it's based on what I couldn't collect, the engagement on this site and on patreon as whole makes it almost impossible to collect 100% accurate information and the fact that so many things are playing into a question of this site's viability rather than its ease of use makes it seem like it's a lost cause to find the gems that aren't inherently propagated by the algorithm. Simply put, I can't find anything that isn't smut that makes anywhere near the amount from this site that it would make if it catered to the readership of this site's competitor.

Okay, so seeing how I can have a proper dialogue and you are willing to listen, let me talk about some of your points.

The first and most obvious one is the fact that you chose popular stories from RR and judged whether you can earn money in SH or not. This makes your research basically useless.

Why is that? Well, because RR and SH have different likes and dislikes, it is obvious. And it's not about Smut or not. Both sites love LitRPG, but there's a catch. Out of the 5 stories you mentioned are crossposted, 3 of them don't have comedy, which is a huge factor. SH likes lighthearted stories, while RR, as far as I'm aware, gravitates toward more serious stories.

Next is another piece that nullifies your data gathering. You took stories that flopped on SH. As I said before, SH and RR have different likes. SH = lighthearted anime-like web novels, RR more serious stuff.

Out of the five works you've mentioned, only 1 did relatively well, Prophecy Approved Companion. Which had comedy in it and earns 546$. And it would be very interesting to learn how much of those 546$ prophecies Approved Companion earns from SH.

Another faulty piece of your data gathering is the date those stories branched out and stopped updating. Two out of 5 stopped updating on SH this summer.

Yet another piece of misinformation is you saying that you can't become popular on SH. It's not a lost cause to find gems on SH because SH promotes basically random stories on its trending AND on NU(novel updates), not only smut. I obviously didn't make screenshots of trending, but I monitored it for almost three years(which is why I didn't make screenshots, taking one every day for three years, spare me). Two more years than you, and unfortunately, I don't have any argument other than 'trust me bro', but trending DOESN'T consist of smut.

Another thing that you don't take into consideration is that you can become popular on SH by writing Fanfics. Yes, you can. RaizarP did it, he became popular by writing an MHA fanfic which he abandoned and started writing originals. Because you can't monetize fanfics. BUT, any kind of fanfic, non-smut one as well, is ABSOLUTELY LOVED by SH readers. Reason? The main readerbase comes from NU(novel updates a sister site) which holds an enormous amount of translated Japanese light and web novels.

To say that you can't earn money on SH, you need to actually find thriving non-smut stories on SH, look at how much they earn.

But here's another catch. Reader\followers =\= amount of patrons. As you like examples, look at The Sex Beast System (The World Of Systems) and Roeselawik Patreon, and then look at Saileri's Patreon. Compare the number of readers both have, and get your argument nullified. Why you should listen to this one example? I simply did the same thing you did.

What you did is cherry-picking. Looking at 5 novels and saying vague things about interaction doesn't make your argument valid. You don't take PayPal donations and Ko-Fi into consideration either. I'm not blaming you or saying you maliciously cherry-picked. The fact that you even bothered to gather the data is great, and I thank you for this. However, judging whether you can earn from SH and how much based on what you wrote is impossible.

I forgot to add that you also need to take crossposting to WN into consideration. No matter how scummy WN is and how fake the amount of readers you get there is, it is still one of the biggest sites. You can't completely write it off as non-existent, you can still promote your Ko-Fi, PayPal, and Patreon there.

 

[AliceShiki]

-Part 1 Overview: This whole thread has devolved due to the apparent lack of integrity in several members. No one said you can't make money period from writing non-smut stories. No one said only smut stories make money in general, and anything said close to that is open to interpretation but is easily disprovable and can be seen as hyperbolic language.

The amount of misinformation is despicable. When referring to this site alone on the subject most can't seem to point to any actual backing for their points for or against making respectable amounts of money with supposed non-smut.

-Part 2 Scribblehub money: The data I'm going to proceed with accounts only for money made on patreon. I've accrued a list of stories to test the hypothesis and asked around for some input from at least well known level authors (Only 5 authors were readily reachable for this last minute data gathering), and the consensus thus far is approximately a range of 10-36%(Avg:23%) of patrons coming from Scribblehub alone, with ranges of revenue going from as low as 1500 to as high as 5k per month. Mind you all of these stories they wrote are the top .01% of Scribblehub (at least top 155)

To get more specific the patreon with an income of 2.2k had the highest amount of Scribblehub patrons at 36%, an unknown percentage of scribblehub patrons contributed at its peak 500$ to a patreon that at the time made an income of 4,475$ per month, another patreon with an income of around 3k+ had 20% of its patronage made up of Scribblehub readers, the highest income included reached around 5,691$ the assumed percentage of scribblehub patrons in this case was 25% (the income this percentage contributed to might either be an outlier or untrue as the author commented they no longer remember the date the poll was made on but I took a point that fits the description author gave "nope, could've been longer" when asked if it was exactly a year ago as of today's date.)

The large caveat here is that this data is old (all of the authors I've asked do not have any recent polls) and is limited in scope (again only 5 authors were asked). Even fairly new data (2/5 of the data points) that was included in this is from very early this year (January 2022) or less than 2 years ago (March 2021) but still fits in with the old data. It being 2-3 years old data means its relevancy is frankly debatable but in that debate there hasn't been a single rising star in the midst of this time frame that could give us insight into how much stake a developing story has on this website. This is bad because it illustrates that no one has even reached the peak of this site through exclusivity and achieved any recognizable level of success in terms of revenue (specifically 1st world country levels of wage).

Conversation (involving a well known member of the staff) around 2 years ago in the public scribblehub discord clearly outlined that money was not the reason to post on scribblehub, building and expanding readerbase was the touted reason to even consider it for any newcomers. There was hope that this would change given time but I do not see any evidence to prove this after so long.

-Part 3 Another Side: Now someone made the point that 4k followers on another site: Royal Road, would grant nearly 1k per month on patreon. I went through and sifted through the stories sitting at 4k followers and a couple of points above and below that, and decided to narrow the research down even further to stories that were made in the past year or so and came from non-established authors ie those who haven't had a story as big or bigger than this one. 11 stories fit that criteria, I also found some that went above and beyond but removed them, reducing it to the eleven being analyzed rn.

I included only the highest income they reached in a month, of those stories that started within 12 months ago and now that currently sit at nearly 4k followers; 7 of them made at least 1k at their highest income level, 4 of them did not reach this. 7 of them are not on Scribblehub, 4 of them are crossposted to here and RR. There does not seem to be any strong correlation with increased income to these stories from being posted on scribblehub.

View attachment 15821

The two outliers that I didn't include to the eleven stated here make well over the 1k requirement and also are already at the top of their respective website. The minimum displayed here is equivalent to their number of patrons so it is my guess that a good chunk of them push the revenue far above that minimum.

View attachment 15822

Conclusion: With this data I think it is a fair assertion to say that if you seek to post on this site for money alone with a non-smut story you are better served elsewhere, if you seek to post on this site for the purpose most recognize which is to build and expand a readerbase it is still debatable but ultimately up to the writer to make the call.

Thank you so much for this research! I really appreciate seeing some actual numbers on this!

Like, yeah, sure, the amount of data is limited, but it's definitely a good start for the conversation~

The point I liked the most, was the 10-36% of the patrons coming from Scribblehub among the stories you checked... If we use the 23% average, that's a 29% increase in income that can be obtained from crossposting a story in both RR and on SH. That's a pretty considerable and note-worthy improvement.

Like, yeah, sure, RR is probably more profitable, but SH also being profitable is plenty on its own, since you don't really have any reason to not post on both sites~

No one said you can't make money period from writing non-smut stories. No one said only smut stories make money in general, and anything said close to that is open to interpretation but is easily disprovable and can be seen as hyperbolic language.

For the record, I did not take it as hyperbolic language at first, I just assumed the other party was arguing in bad faith, because they certainly seemed to be.

They did later on say that it was hyperbole later on, but by that point I had already given up on having a real discussion with them, so... I didn't take that seriously... >.>

But well, thanks for making a more well-grounded point on all this! Much appreciated! I really like seeing numbers on this kind of thing~

 

[RaizarP]

I think I should provide data as well?
My highest is around 150 patrons when my story shot up after placing first in the second tempest contest. After that due to my laziness (I procrastinated!) it decreased slowly until today.
For your record, I only write ecchi with only few ecchi scene (such as bathing together!) with no smut at all! I hope this help
I also only active on SH because of my laziness too! Actually I can keep uploading on RR and webnovel, but I don't do that (once again because of my laziness)

 

[Mystic_Grasshopper]

The first and most obvious one is the fact that you chose popular stories from RR and judged whether you can earn money in SH or not. This makes your research basically useless.

The five I chose are extremely popular on this site sitting in the top 155 of the entire site when you look at ranking some of them you can see from the very first page. I didn't choose them to see whether you could make money I simply gauged how much the readerbase here contributes to these author's patreons.

Another faulty piece of your data gathering is the date those stories branched out and stopped updating. Two out of 5 stopped updating on SH this summer.

If you mean the stories which are in the list of 11, yeah I only added their crossposting status as a tangent not for anything of real value other than to say most of them did not benefit significantly from it, adding on how long since their original release it took for them to crosspost and whether they continued or not is a question you could've asked me because I neglected to add it due to the fact that it would make it seem like the bias was even greater to not post an entire story on SH.

Yet another piece of misinformation is you saying that you can't become popular on SH. It's not a lost cause to find gems on SH because SH promotes basically random stories on its trending AND on NU(novel updates), not only smut. I obviously didn't make screenshots of trending, but I monitored it for almost three years(which is why I didn't make screenshots, taking one every day for three years, spare me). Two more years than you, and unfortunately, I don't have any argument other than 'trust me bro', but trending DOESN'T consist of smut.

Being popular and making money are severely separated which leads me to believe that you only skimmed through the data I provided instead of looking at it closely, I never made such claims as you can't become popular on SH nor that only smut trends. (side note: this is an alt account I've been here for over 2 years I know about trending just as much as you do.) When referring to gems as I put it I mean stories that were making money and had a decent amount of popularity, that for some reason weren't picked up by the algorithm as most of the stories that I found on trending don't seem to indicate the former but do follow the latter.

There's a big problem with having popularity indicate profitability because several stories with a good amount of followers simply don't even monetize.

Another thing that you don't take into consideration is that you can become popular on SH by writing Fanfics. Yes, you can. RaizarP did it, he became popular by writing an MHA fanfic which he abandoned and started writing originals. Because you can't monetize fanfics. BUT, any kind of fanfic, non-smut one as well, is ABSOLUTELY LOVED by SH readers. Reason? The main readerbase comes from NU(novel updates a sister site) which holds an enormous amount of translated Japanese light and web novels.

Again this notion of getting popular on SH with fanfic is kind of irrelevant to the discussion when it's about monetization in the first place. But you also seem to forget that RaizarP was making money on patreon from his fanfics, advanced chapters for all of them were listed under his tiers. The point being I don't take this into consideration because it's the same in terms of making money, I prefer to look for originals but I wouldn't be surprised to find several authors who make good money by selling fanfiction but that's a market on its own that I decided to filter out from this discussion, especially because I don't know where if anywhere these stories are crossposted on, and it doesn't seem genuine to tell a newcomer to write fanfiction if they want to make money or get popular because it falls in the same conundrum this thread got into in the first place, it mirrors the conversation around smut.

To say that you can't earn money on SH, you need to actually find thriving non-smut stories on SH, look at how much they earn.

This is one I would've liked an actual example of. I can't find these stories as easily, and some of them as I mentioned before don't even monetize their work.

But here's another catch. Reader\followers =\= amount of patrons. As you like examples, look at The Sex Beast System (The World Of Systems) and Roeselawik Patreon, and then look at Saileri's Patreon. Compare the number of readers both have, and get your argument nullified. Why you should listen to this one example? I simply did the same thing you did.

If I compare the historical data as I did for the other five authors Roeselawik far surpassed Saileri at his peak when comparing where they both were at the time, I for one did follow Roese's story and the prolonged hiatuses between chapters butchered his stats on patreon. Saileri's patreon is an entirely different beast, his expansion into Amazon KU and marketing his book in turn gets more eyes on his patreon as his books contain within them a link to it as well, any reader who has taken the investment to purchase or read his novelizations is more likely to continue following his current work.

The other thing to note is that again I have limited the scope on several parameters one of them being non-smut, both of these authors are in that genre.

What you did is cherry-picking. Looking at 5 novels and saying vague things about interaction doesn't make your argument valid. You don't take PayPal donations and Ko-Fi into consideration either. I'm not blaming you or saying you maliciously cherry-picked. The fact that you even bothered to gather the data is great, and I thank you for this. However, judging whether you can earn from SH and how much based on what you wrote is impossible.

I looked at a total of 18 novels but you didn't actually read into everything I said, I asked 5 authors who crossposted their stories here and on royal road to see how significant it was for them to do so when gauging patreon contributions. I don't take paypal or kofi into consideration because there's no historical data available, we would have to take the word of the author for paypal donos and kofi.

There's the 11 novels that were pulled straight from RR and I looked at a specific follower count to see how much truth was in the statement made by another member. They were not meant as further guides for the amount of money they could make on Scribblehub but seeing as how the ones that made significantly more didn't even crosspost I didn't use it as basis for anything more than to say that posting on scribblehub did not follow with the amount of money made for these stories specifically.

The last two are examples of stories that do well within one year and have reached a high standing on RoyalRoad, I added them as an example that nothing like that exists in the scope of Scribblehub. Even the one story I see that has almost reached 4k readers within less than a year of its release doesn't monetize so there's no data there for what such a story could make if it did.

I forgot to add that you also need to take crossposting to WN into consideration. No matter how scummy WN is and how fake the amount of readers you get there is, it is still one of the biggest sites. You can't completely write it off as non-existent, you can still promote your Ko-Fi, PayPal, and Patreon there.

Yeah and there's tapas, amazon, questionable questing, ao3, wattpad, honeyfeed, fictionpress... to name a few some even more popular than WN, point is I have no idea of tracking where every story gets posted so you making a point to say they could make their money elsewhere falls in line with my conclusion.

The point I liked the most, was the 10-36% of the patrons coming from Scribblehub among the stories you checked... If we use the 23% average, that's a 29% increase in income that can be obtained from crossposting a story in both RR and on SH. That's a pretty considerable and note-worthy improvement.

Like, yeah, sure, RR is probably more profitable, but SH also being profitable is plenty on its own, since you don't really have any reason to not post on both sites~

This is sort of to be taken with a grain of salt, since these are already popular stories, that some even continue to be ongoing to this day means it's easier to see how they might have much more support from the readerbase here after getting to the top.

Ultimately it is up to authors to decide whether or not they will crosspost, but it is overly optimistic in my opinion to believe one could expect a significant chunk of their money to be coming from SH. One can hope this changes with time.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Ultimately it is up to authors to decide whether or not they will crosspost, but it is overly optimistic in my opinion to believe one could expect a significant chunk of their money to be coming from SH. One can hope this changes with time.

I only post to SH. Seems to be working fine for me. Then again, I make 90k a year at my job as a professional ass-wiper, so anything that happens from my writing is insignificant. Could have made 100k this year, but I need a vacation so I'm taking half of December off. That's gonna cost me. So much OT around X-mas. I got people clamoring to get my shifts.

 

[KiraMinoru]

Well in terms of profitability of smut vs action on SH vs RR I can provide some numbers.

An action/adventure that was posted only to RR like three to four years ago made 10k lifetime to date. Word count was in the ballpark of 100k words.

A story with smut mainly posted to ScribbleHub for about a year or so made 10k to date with around 1.1 mil words.

So SH earning potential is far less even if you write smut. The conversion rate is much lower on SH than other platforms.

 

[SailusGebel]

The five I chose are extremely popular on this site sitting in the top 155 of the entire site when you look at ranking some of them you can see from the very first page. I didn't choose them to see whether you could make money I simply gauged how much the readerbase here contributes to these author's patreons.

By, "On this site" Do You mean SH or RR? Because if you mean SH, let's look at the stats.

All The Skills 1.2k Views 11 Favorites 6 Chapters 0 Chapters/Week 46 Readers
My class [Death Knight] is just barely legal… 11.9k Views 309 Favorites 27 Chapters 0 Chapters/Week 184 Readers
Blair (A Dark Elf LitRPG) 15.3k Views 364 Favorites 41 Chapters 11 Chapters/Week 262 Readers
Overleveled: Arrival in a New World 6.3k Views 76 Favorites 18 Chapters 3 Chapters/Week 125 Readers
Prophecy Approved Companion 56.1k Views 2564 Favorites 122 Chapters 1 Chapters/Week 646 Readers

That is their stats on SH. As you can see, only 1 of them, Prophecy, got popular on SH. I excluded genres like Smut, Mature, GB, GL, and sexual content warning, yet even with that Prophecy isn't even in the top 200. Btw ,I sorted by readers.

And I said it in my previous reply, yet you ignored that part. Out of the five works you've mentioned, only 1 did relatively well, Prophecy Approved Companion. Which had comedy in it and earns 546$. And it would be very interesting to learn how much of 546$ Prophecy Approved Companion earns from SH.

If I compare the historical data as I did for the other five authors Roeselawik far surpassed Saileri at his peak when comparing where they both were at the time, I for one did follow Roese's story and the prolonged hiatuses between chapters butchered his stats on patreon. Saileri's patreon is an entirely different beast, his expansion into Amazon KU and marketing his book in turn gets more eyes on his patreon as his books contain within them a link to it as well, any reader who has taken the investment to purchase or read his novelizations is more likely to continue following his current work.

The other thing to note is that again I have limited the scope on several parameters one of them being non-smut, both of these authors are in that genre.

If more followers = More patrons, then the more reasons why your list isn't accurate, look at the point above.

I looked at a total of 18 novels but you didn't actually read into everything I said, I asked 5 authors who crossposted their stories here and on royal road to see how significant it was for them to do so when gauging patreon contributions. I don't take paypal or kofi into consideration because there's no historical data available, we would have to take the word of the author for paypal donos and kofi.

There's the 11 novels that were pulled straight from RR and I looked at a specific follower count to see how much truth was in the statement made by another member. They were not meant as further guides for the amount of money they could make on Scribblehub but seeing as how the ones that made significantly more didn't even crosspost I didn't use it as basis for anything more than to say that posting on scribblehub did not follow with the amount of money made for these stories specifically.

The last two are examples of stories that do well within one year and have reached a high standing on RoyalRoad, I added them as an example that nothing like that exists in the scope of Scribblehub. Even the one story I see that has almost reached 4k readers within less than a year of its release doesn't monetize so there's no data there for what such a story could make if it did.

Err, as I said before, you made judgments you can't make by only having info from one side(RR). You said it yourself, you don't have info about Ko-FI, you know that a lot of authors here simply don't monetize their works, yet you said, "Conclusion: With this data I think it is a fair assertion to say that if you seek to post on this site for money alone with a non-smut story you are better served elsewhere," It's not a fair assertion.

Yeah and there's tapas, amazon, questionable questing, ao3, wattpad, honeyfeed, fictionpress... to name a few some even more popular than WN, point is I have no idea of tracking where every story gets posted so you making a point to say they could make their money elsewhere falls in line with my conclusion.

Let's not pretend that WN isn't huge and isn't one of the biggest sites. Amazon is obviously more popular and bigger, but it's not exactly what I meant. I meant that among sites like tapas, Wattpad, and so on, there are the big three, SH, RR, and WN. Everything else isn't nearly big enough in terms of readerbase. Everyone said that Wattpad had died. Personally, I don't know and haven't checked it, but I see no reason not to believe Hans. Honeyfeed is very new, Tapas' main attraction is comics, AO3 might be old, and so on, but it has a niche audience, and the rest are too small.

With everything that I've seen, I can say a couple of things. You obviously should crosspost because RR makes more money in general, as non-smut makes more money in general. That is one of the things I said at the beginning of this thread. But you can also make money from SH. The thing is, we either don't have such a precedent because most popular works(top 50) on SH simply don't monetize at all, or they are also popular on RR, or we don't have any data because you will have to look through more than 300 novels. Because there are around 300 non-smut novels that can earn sizeable money, but you will have to check them manually, ask what percent they earn from SH if they crosspost, and ask about Ko-Fi, PayPal, and so on.

SH still gives a sizeable boost to income. The 20% you mentioned is big enough. Yes, RR makes more money, and yes, to go full-time, you probably need to crosspost. But you need to crosspost even if you write smut, and it depends on the amount you need to go full-time. If you need 1k$, you can probably make it off SH alone, but the last statement is speculation on my part.

 

[Mystic_Grasshopper]

That is their stats on SH. As you can see, only 1 of them, Prophecy, got popular on SH. I excluded genres like Smut, Mature, GB, GL, and sexual content warning, yet even with that Prophecy isn't even in the top 200. Btw ,I sorted by readers.

Is english your second language? I never revealed what the five authors from SH that were used for the data were, the only ones directly shown were the RR stories.

And I said it in my previous reply, yet you ignored that part. Out of the five works you've mentioned, only 1 did relatively well, Prophecy Approved Companion. Which had comedy in it and earns 546$. And it would be very interesting to learn how much of 546$ Prophecy Approved Companion earns from SH.

And this is why I ignored it the last time, because you didn't read my entire abstract, you just saw five and ran with it, and continue to do so. That story for my point did not align with what was claimed by another member, the amount contributed to the patreon by SH readers would help with seeing how new stories do but it was not a focus because the patreon currently is lower than at that point.

Let's not pretend that WN isn't huge and isn't one of the biggest sites. Amazon is obviously more popular and bigger, but it's not exactly what I meant. I meant that among sites like tapas, Wattpad, and so on, there are the big three, SH, RR, and WN. Everything else isn't nearly big enough in terms of readerbase. Everyone said that Wattpad had died. Personally, I don't know and haven't checked it, but I see no reason not to believe Hans. Honeyfeed is very new, Tapas' main attraction is comics, AO3 might be old, and so on, but it has a niche audience, and the rest are too small.

WN isn't huge, it is comparable to RR and SH, both of which belong on a mid tier, SH even borders on being lower-mid tier. Also, REALLY? You're going to just take Hans Tronheim's word for it that Wattpad is dead and not do yourself justice to look it up? The truth on that subject is that wattpad isn't dead it far surpasses any of your supposed big three, however this is a saturated market but it does still have a humongous readerbase. AO3 having a niche audience doesn't disqualify it from being compared to other novel sites, especially not when it's on par with wattpad and absolutely eclipses your supposed big three.

This isn't coming from my ass, if you use similarweb.com, a tool we've used before to determine the popularity of this site, you will see that these 2 have far more web traffic than anything our humble sites could ever dream of.

SH still gives a sizeable boost to income. The 20% you mentioned is big enough. Yes, RR makes more money, and yes, to go full-time, you probably need to crosspost. But you need to crosspost even if you write smut, and it depends on the amount you need to go full-time. If you need 1k$, you can probably make it off SH alone, but the last statement is speculation on my part.

This is an actual cherrypick, you can't throw my data away and then proceed to co op when it suits your point. Like I told Alice, this is to be taken with a huge grain of salt because the five authors that were asked to collect this data were already popular on this site and on Royal Road for a time. If I were to ask the percentage of Scribblehub patrons on any of those 11 stories I collected I would not be surprised if it would severely tip that percentage, because it was my opinion that crossposting here did not end up aiding or hurting these stories.

 

[AliceShiki]

Everyone said that Wattpad had died.

For the record, Wattpad is gigantic. Like, 5 times bigger than Webnovel, RR and SH combined.

It's the #159 ranked site on the internet in terms of views.

Sure, its number of monthly views does seem to be falling, but the number is still outrageously high. It got 149.1M views in August.

Comparatively...

• Webnovel: 14.5M views in August
• Royalroad: 12.7M views in August
• Scribblehub: 4.3M views in August

Yeah... That's how big the difference is. Wattpad isn't close to being dead.

That said, it maaaaaaaaybe might be dying, because it got 179.2M views in June and 169.9M views in July... The drop from June to August was ridiculously high, so maybe it might be losing a considerable portion of its userbase as the months pass.

We'll have to wait and see, but right now, even if its not as big as it once was, it's still a gigantic website that overshadows Webnovel, Royalroad and Scribblehub by such a ridiculous margin that it doesn't even make sense to try comparing them to Wattpad.

You can see the numbers for yourself here, if you want, btw:

https://www.similarweb.com/website/wattpad.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/webnovel.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/royalroad.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/scribblehub.com/

 

[SailusGebel]

Is english your second language? I never revealed what the five authors from SH that were used for the data were, the only ones directly shown were the RR stories.

Yes, English is my second language. But when you mention authors who earn 4-5k$(at peak) and then proceed to show a list of stories that earn 1600$(at peak), I can add one plus one.

As I said multiple times before, you keep ignoring the fact that your data is invalid. First of all, five authors are nearly not enough, and you yourself added that their stats are outdated.

Secondly, by posting those 11 stories, you wanted to show that crossposting to SH doesn't contribute to popular RR stories in terms of income. But it is flawed data because the stories that are popular on RR flopped on SH. It's hard to make a difference in a 1600$ income(at peak) from RR when you have 100 readers on SH.

Example, one story earns 1600$(at peak) by only posting at RR, Mark of the Krijik. Blair also earns 1600$(at peak) by crossposting on both RR and SH, yet here's what you omitted. Blair flopped on SH and has 260 readers. It's obvious that crossposting won't give any difference, and you will say SH doesn't bring any money.

WN isn't huge, it is comparable to RR and SH, both of which belong on a mid tier, SH even borders on being lower-mid tier. Also, REALLY? You're going to just take Hans Tronheim's word for it that Wattpad is dead and not do yourself justice to look it up? The truth on that subject is that wattpad isn't dead it far surpasses any of your supposed big three, however this is a saturated market but it does still have a humongous readerbase. AO3 having a niche audience doesn't disqualify it from being compared to other novel sites, especially not when it's on par with wattpad and absolutely eclipses your supposed big three.

This isn't coming from my ass, if you use similarweb.com, a tool we've used before to determine the popularity of this site, you will see that these 2 have far more web traffic than anything our humble sites could ever dream of.

Well, yes, I trust Hans. He has a good rep, and I see no reason to not believe him but believe you. Also, he wasn't the only one who said Wattpad is dead. But it doesn't matter. We are talking about me, and I am wrong here.

This is an actual cherrypick, you can't throw my data away and then proceed to co op when it suits your point.

Yes, it was probably a cherry-pick. I'm sorry. But it doesn't make your stats valid.

If I were to ask the percentage of Scribblehub patrons on any of those 11 stories I collected I would not be surprised if it would severely tip that percentage, because it was my opinion that crossposting here did not end up aiding or hurting these stories.

Obviously, because they flopped on SH. That's my problem. That, and this, "Conclusion: With this data I think it is a fair assertion to say that if you seek to post on this site for money alone with a non-smut story you are better served elsewhere," You give a conclusion and say it's a fair assertion. It's not.

 

[Aaqil]

For the record, Wattpad is gigantic. Like, 5 times bigger than Webnovel, RR and SH combined.

It's the #159 ranked site on the internet in terms of views.

Sure, its number of monthly views does seem to be falling, but the number is still outrageously high. It got 149.1M views in August.

Comparatively...

• Webnovel: 14.5M views in August
• Royalroad: 12.7M views in August
• Scribblehub: 4.3M views in August

Yeah... That's how big the difference is. Wattpad isn't close to being dead.

That said, it maaaaaaaaybe might be dying, because it got 179.2M views in June and 169.9M views in July... The drop from June to August was ridiculously high, so maybe it might be losing a considerable portion of its userbase as the months pass.

We'll have to wait and see, but right now, even if its not as big as it once was, it's still a gigantic website that overshadows Webnovel, Royalroad and Scribblehub by such a ridiculous margin that it doesn't even make sense to try comparing them to Wattpad.

You can see the numbers for yourself here, if you want, btw:

https://www.similarweb.com/website/wattpad.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/webnovel.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/royalroad.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/scribblehub.com/

 

[Mystic_Grasshopper]

But when you mention authors who earn 4-5k$(at peak) and then proceed to show a list of stories that earn 1600$(at peak), I can add one plus one.

I clearly defined and separated the parts of my data gathering between the two, you may add one plus one but this is a subtraction problem.

Secondly, by posting those 11 stories, you wanted to show that crossposting to SH doesn't contribute to popular RR stories in terms of income. But it is flawed data because the stories that are popular on RR flopped on SH. It's hard to make a difference in a 1600$ income(at peak) from RR when you have 100 readers on SH.

Example, one story earns 1600$(at peak) by only posting at RR, Mark of the Krijik. Blair also earns 1600$(at peak) by crossposting on both RR and SH, yet here's what you omitted. Blair flopped on SH and has 260 readers. It's obvious that crossposting won't give any difference, and you will say SH doesn't bring any money.

I omitted those points because they were invalid, the purpose was their popularity on RR, I checked to see if they were crossposted on the off chance that it might interfere with how much might've been made from being popular on RR alone if it happened to also be popular here as well. I even said it over and over and over for you to get it, the analysis of those stories were purely on their monetary performance and I stated that it only made sense in the context of those stories not the viability of scribblehub as a whole, which I said again several times.

Obviously, because they flopped on SH. That's my problem. That, and this, "Conclusion: With this data I think it is a fair assertion to say that if you seek to post on this site for money alone with a non-smut story you are better served elsewhere," You give a conclusion and say it's a fair assertion. It's not.

It is when you can't objectively argue that it is worth your time to dedicate and exclusively use this site for that purpose, the second half of my conclusion strongly focuses that we aren't even talking about how easy it is to post on this site and getting your story approved we're talking about number of readers, popularity and monetary gains, which if competing with other sites is severely in the favor of competitors which have a larger and more western reader base. I continued that point by saying I couldn't find someone who makes a decent chunk of change here that wouldn't have made the same or more by going on other sites.

So at this point, I see that you can't even comprehend grounded takes, anything that tells you that maybe this isn't the best place to be, you immediately try to discredit and claim to be misinformation when all I've given you is the information I've gathered and my opinion. And you argue that my opinion is wrong and don't even try to refute it with any hard numbers of your own just baseless assumptions.

 

[Aaqil]

For the record, Wattpad is gigantic. Like, 5 times bigger than Webnovel, RR and SH combined.

It's the #159 ranked site on the internet in terms of views.

Sure, its number of monthly views does seem to be falling, but the number is still outrageously high. It got 149.1M views in August.

Comparatively...

• Webnovel: 14.5M views in August
• Royalroad: 12.7M views in August
• Scribblehub: 4.3M views in August

Yeah... That's how big the difference is. Wattpad isn't close to being dead.

That said, it maaaaaaaaybe might be dying, because it got 179.2M views in June and 169.9M views in July... The drop from June to August was ridiculously high, so maybe it might be losing a considerable portion of its userbase as the months pass.

We'll have to wait and see, but right now, even if its not as big as it once was, it's still a gigantic website that overshadows Webnovel, Royalroad and Scribblehub by such a ridiculous margin that it doesn't even make sense to try comparing them to Wattpad.

You can see the numbers for yourself here, if you want, btw:

https://www.similarweb.com/website/wattpad.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/webnovel.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/royalroad.com/

https://www.similarweb.com/website/scribblehub.com/

Good goly, AO3 has over 300M visits a month!

 

[SailusGebel]

I clearly defined and separated the parts of my data gathering between the two, you may add one plus one but this is a subtraction problem.

I meant to say that I understand you didn't name authors, and they are not on the list(pictures).

I omitted those points because they were invalid, the purpose was their popularity on RR, I checked to see if they were crossposted on the off chance that it might interfere with how much might've been made from being popular on RR alone if it happened to also be popular here as well. I even said it over and over and over for you to get it, the analysis of those stories were purely on their monetary performance and I stated that it only made sense in the context of those stories not the viability of scribblehub as a whole, which I said again several times.

So, you want to say that those 11 stories don't have anything to do with the topic of whether SH can make money or not? If so, I'm sorry.

It is when you can't objectively argue that it is worth your time to dedicate and exclusively use this site for that purpose, the second half of my conclusion strongly focuses that we aren't even talking about how easy it is to post on this site and getting your story approved we're talking about number of readers, popularity and monetary gains, which if competing with other sites is severely in the favor of competitors which have a larger and more western reader base. I continued that point by saying I couldn't find someone who makes a decent chunk of change here that wouldn't have made the same or more by going on other sites.

So at this point, I see that you can't even comprehend grounded takes, anything that tells you that maybe this isn't the best place to be, you immediately try to discredit and claim to be misinformation when all I've given you is the information I've gathered and my opinion. And you argue that my opinion is wrong and don't even try to refute it with any hard numbers of your own just baseless assumptions.

With everything that I've seen, I can say a couple of things. You obviously should crosspost because RR makes more money in general, as non-smut makes more money in general. That is one of the things I said at the beginning of this thread. But you can also make money from SH. The thing is, we either don't have such a precedent because most popular works(top 50) on SH simply don't monetize at all, or they are also popular on RR, or we don't have any data because you will have to look through more than 300 novels. Because there are around 300 non-smut novels that can earn sizeable money, but you will have to check them manually, ask what percent they earn from SH if they crosspost, and ask about Ko-Fi, PayPal, and so on.

Initially and now, I talked about whether you can make money on SH by writing non-smut or not. I can say again that RR makes more money, a lot more. I can say again that to go full-time by writing non-smut, you have to crosspost on RR if you need more than 800-1000k$.

I never talked about SH being more profitable or being self-sufficient. I misunderstood your stats about the 11 stories that I did. I said that having outdated info from 5 authors isn't enough. That I still think is correct. If I said that SH is self-sufficient before in my replies, I'm sorry, as it was a wrong statement.

 

[Mystic_Grasshopper]

I meant to say that I understand you didn't name authors, and they are not on the list(pictures).

I didn't name mostly because I don't know if they would want it to be public info.

So, you want to say that those 11 stories don't have anything to do with the topic of whether SH can make money or not? If so, I'm sorry.

The stories that were crossposted may have some relevancy but overall no it was not my intention to bring them into the forefront of the discussion about making money on Scribblehub.

Initially and now, I talked about whether you can make money on SH by writing non-smut or not. I can say again that RR makes more money, a lot more. I can say again that to go full-time by writing non-smut, you have to crosspost on RR if you need more than 800-1000k$.

I started out my reply by stating that there is money to be made here but concluded that it should not be the focus for posting here.

I never talked about SH being more profitable or being self-sufficient. I misunderstood your stats about the 11 stories that I did. I said that having outdated info from 5 authors isn't enough. That I still think is correct. If I said that SH is self-sufficient before in my replies, I'm sorry, as it was a wrong statement.

Some comments you made when speaking to fritzer about this subject could lead someone to believe you could be fine without posting on other sites for money and exposure, that's the only relevant point I can remember seeing about that. The outdated info runs into the issue that some of these authors are no longer making as much money so I don't know if it's true that SH stopped support but it certainly can be said that overall support for their stories has shrunk regardless of source.

One author in particular began a new story that is wildly more popular on RR and has sort of mid numbers on SH but is definitely in the realm of success, however with the sheer amount of revenue (an insane amount than when they originally made their poll) they make I don't think it to have significantly come from SH as the author is now on Amazon as well and the author does not have any current polls on it which is unfortunate.

 

[SailusGebel]

I started out my reply by stating that there is money to be made here but concluded that it should not be the focus for posting here.

I have probably missed it, sorry.

Some comments you made when speaking to fritzer about this subject could lead someone to believe you could be fine without posting on other sites for money and exposure, that's the only relevant point I can remember seeing about that. The outdated info runs into the issue that some of these authors are no longer making as much money so I don't know if it's true that SH stopped support but it certainly can be said that overall support for their stories has shrunk regardless of source.

One author in particular began a new story that is wildly more popular on RR and has sort of mid numbers on SH but is definitely in the realm of success, however with the sheer amount of revenue (an insane amount than when they originally made their poll) they make I don't think it to have significantly come from SH as the author is now on Amazon as well and the author does not have any current polls on it which is unfortunate.

Yes, this is one of the problems I have. Even in my native language, sometimes I can't phrase my thoughts properly.

I also changed my mind after reading what you said about five authors. You provided at least some stats and spent time looking for them, so I believed you, while fritzer had none(at the time of my reply). That thread I mentioned before was also old, so things have changed. I remembered that you could've earned a sizeable amount of money on SH(plus old stats), but after looking at some top stories myself and seeing your reply, I understood that it changed.

 

[Fritzer]

I never talked about SH being more profitable or being self-sufficient.

I don't know if you are trying to pick a fight or are serious, but you are wrong. Smut earns a LOT less than non-smut. And you don't need to post on RR if you don't have smut and want money.

Liar.

That thread I mentioned before was also old, so things have changed. I remembered that you could've earned a sizeable amount of money on SH(plus old stats), but after looking at some top stories myself and seeing your reply, I understood that it changed.

I been in SH since 2020.

I don't know what you are talking about. Unironically, SH has actually gotten better as user count increases.

 

[J_Chemist]

Ahem.

If you would like an answer to your question, go to a Barnes & Noble or any bookstore. There are shelves of books that aren't smut being sold.

If you want to make money online without writing Smut, make sure to find the right target audience and the proper website to do so. Or, just spam post it everywhere. More views and more eyes means more potential money. Restricting to yourself to SH or RR is akin to McDonald's cutting out a specific state in the United States just because they don't like it. Nah. Maximize your audience.

A number of people in the ongoing discussion have mentioned reasons why to post and why not to post, but even I've found readers here that enjoy my novel. My novel isn't smut. I've also found some success on RR. If you like writing, then share it. Set up your patreon/coffee things and those who wish to support you will do so.

However. Someone made a great point in another thread and I apologize for forgetting their name. But once you make that transition from hobby to asking for money for your work, it becomes a job. With that comes the mandatory responsibilities to your readers. Consistent posting, content, reliability, and quality. It's no longer for fun and there is a much higher expectation for what you put out.

Either way, good luck, have fun, enjoy the goblin dicks that are randomly around, and try not to get bred by some random fucking GB weirdo in a dress. It's like Thailand 'round here sometimes.

 

[Erios909]

I know everyone is really passionate about this... but I couldn't help but think to myself the entire time that the thread was:

'Is it possible to earn money without writing smut'
not
'Does writing smut make more money than not writing smut?'
or
'Is it possible to earn money without writing smut on Scribble Hub'

So my input is:
Yes. Making money without writing smut is a very long profession with a lot of people making their livelihood from it, whether it be journalists, bloggers, regular non-smut fiction writers, or editors who do corrections... its a wide field with a lot of jobs!

Yeah, I know, you're probably annoyed at me right now, but I couldn't help it!

 

[Fritzer]

I know everyone is really passionate about this... but I couldn't help but think to myself the entire time that the thread was:

'Is it possible to earn money without writing smut'
not
'Does writing smut make more money than not writing smut?'
or
'Is it possible to earn money without writing smut on Scribble Hub'

So my input is:
Yes. Making money without writing smut is a very long profession with a lot of people making their livelihood from it, whether it be journalists, bloggers, regular non-smut fiction writers, or editors who do corrections... its a wide field with a lot of jobs!

Yeah, I know, you're probably annoyed at me right now, but I couldn't help it!
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