SailusGebel
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2020
- Messages
- 9,493
- Points
- 233
Okay, so seeing how I can have a proper dialogue and you are willing to listen, let me talk about some of your points.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.
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.