"Discovered"

[CupcakeNinja]

I'm pretty sure @CupcakeNinja started writing on Scribblehub and that he already published at least one book... Not sure if it was self-published or traditionally published though.

I do remember him being contacted by Webnovel though, they wanted to sign a contract with him IIRC, but he refused.

Yeah, then starywriting contacted me which ended up being a scam. I mean. I knew that. But i expected to be paid at least, cuz i was SUPPOSED to get an advance of 300$ after the contract was signed But there was some bullshit like, "oh it takes 20-something days for the request to go through. Then the money is transfered to your Starywriting account and then you have to make another request for a withdrawal. "

Like wtf is that crap? Even Webnovel uses paypal.

Anyway i even got contacted again by some Ashley chick from...Sharestory? And they are based in Singapore which i think is where Starywriting is based too so it may even be a sister company.

And im like, "man i am fucking tired of being contacted by all these no-paying, lying-ass, no-good-ass, crusty-ass scammers."

 

[CadmarLegend]

Well, AFAIK, it's quite possible that you write for months in Wattpad without getting a single view, as they don't have a very good system for advertising new stories.

From what I heard, you kinda need to get more involved into their community and hopefully get a shout out from one of the popular authors to start establishing a big readerbase...

So uhn... It's quite different from something like Scribbly, really.

No, what I mean is, even if I got 50 views per chapter within a couple of days worth of uploading, there was no feedback...

 

[AliceShiki]

Yeah, then starywriting contacted me which ended up being a scam. I mean. I knew that. But i expected to be paid at least, cuz i was SUPPOSED to get an advance of 300$ after the contract was signed But there was some bullshit like, "oh it takes 20-something days for the request to go through. Then the money is transfered to your Starywriting account and then you have to make another request for a withdrawal. "

Like wtf is that crap? Even Webnovel uses paypal.

Anyway i even got contacted again by some Ashley chick from...Sharestory? And they are based in Singapore which i think is where Starywriting is based too so it may even be a sister company.

And im like, "man i am fucking tired of being contacted by all these no-paying, lying-ass, no-good-ass, crusty-ass scammers."

I'm surprised you knew it was a scam, but still expected to be paid...

Well, I guess all is well when it ends well? XD

 

[EternalSunset0]

No, what I mean is, even if I got 50 views per chapter within a couple of days worth of uploading, there was no feedback...

I think it's just the same everywhere unless you're lucky. You have some stories getting thousands of views on a chapter and like five comments. That's 1 every 200 at least.

 

[CadmarLegend]

I think it's just the same everywhere unless you're lucky. You have some stories getting thousands of views on a chapter and like five comments. That's 1 every 200 at least.

Whose story? There are usually at least 20 comments per thousand views on stories that are really popular, unless tye story's a smut and peeps don't wanna show others how interested they are in it...

 

[Ai-chan]

Ah, but WebNovel is more famous for its dastardly deeds... so that's why it seems that it is more nefarious than Wattpad.... besides, who even uses Wattpad anymore? You barely get reader feedback....

I heard Webnovel pretty bad. But about signing an agreement to only post to their platform...well iirc, Wattpad Paid stories- part of the agreement was that it was not being published elsewhere or something if you want to participate in their paid program where readers buy coins to read your story.

Don't know how their contract is now, but when they started offering English original contracts, it was really a slave contract. The moment you sign:

1) You relinquish your rights to your stories to webnovel, the copyrights itself in perpetuity, not just exclusivity. What this means is, they don't ask you to post only on their platform, they own that story permanently.
2) Webnovel can make use of any of your other stories, even those not on webnovel for whatever purpose while you're under contract.
3) You have to abide by the quota set by webnovel.
4) If you fail to reach your quota, webnovel has the right to kick you out of your own stories and hire ghost writers under your name, which you're not paid for
5) While you can end the story if you want to retire from the horrible quota demands, that simply means you give webnovel the right to hire someone else to write the sequels. You are not hired for a series. Webnovel decides if they hire you for the sequels of your stories. Oops, it's not your stories anymore.
6) If there are any promotional events where you're invited, you must attend, at your own expense. You will not be reimbursed,
7) If at any point webnovel terminates their contract with you, you have to pay them back what they have given you. Ai-chan doesn't know what this involves, as the contract was pretty vague. Some thought it was the entire bounty, some thought it was just the monthly payment.
8) Your pseudonym is owned by webnovel. It is up to them whether or not you can keep your pseudonym after your contract is terminated. Though Ai-chan hasn't read this particular contract, so take it as you wish.

Webnovel is a China company. And like most China's companies, they abuse their workers to make money. Ai-chan knows this, because Ai-chan used to work for a modelling company owned Tencent back when Ai-chan was still a fashion model. Webnovel/Qidian have always abused their authors this way because that's how it's done in China. When they went global, they didn't realize how scummy they were and that the free world wouldn't take it lying down, unlike China's authors.

Ai-chan heard they made some changes, but no, don't trust them. It's Qidian. If they think they can get away with stabbing you in the back, they WILL stab you in the back. They don't subscribe to the philosophy, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." but instead, they subscribe to the philosophy of "If it makes money, go for it."

 

[Deleted member 45782]

Damn that sucks. I hope someday companies will get better in treating people working under them/partnering with them. Hopefully someday things get better.

 

[Reisinling]

Don't know how their contract is now, but when they started offering English original contracts, it was really a slave contract. The moment you sign:

1) You relinquish your rights to your stories to webnovel, the copyrights itself in perpetuity, not just exclusivity. What this means is, they don't ask you to post only on their platform, they own that story permanently.
2) Webnovel can make use of any of your other stories, even those not on webnovel for whatever purpose while you're under contract.
3) You have to abide by the quota set by webnovel.
4) If you fail to reach your quota, webnovel has the right to kick you out of your own stories and hire ghost writers under your name, which you're not paid for
5) While you can end the story if you want to retire from the horrible quota demands, that simply means you give webnovel the right to hire someone else to write the sequels. You are not hired for a series. Webnovel decides if they hire you for the sequels of your stories. Oops, it's not your stories anymore.
6) If there are any promotional events where you're invited, you must attend, at your own expense. You will not be reimbursed,
7) If at any point webnovel terminates their contract with you, you have to pay them back what they have given you. Ai-chan doesn't know what this involves, as the contract was pretty vague. Some thought it was the entire bounty, some thought it was just the monthly payment.
8) Your pseudonym is owned by webnovel. It is up to them whether or not you can keep your pseudonym after your contract is terminated. Though Ai-chan hasn't read this particular contract, so take it as you wish.

Webnovel is a China company. And like most China's companies, they abuse their workers to make money. Ai-chan knows this, because Ai-chan used to work for a modelling company owned Tencent back when Ai-chan was still a fashion model. Webnovel/Qidian have always abused their authors this way because that's how it's done in China. When they went global, they didn't realize how scummy they were and that the free world wouldn't take it lying down, unlike China's authors.

Ai-chan heard they made some changes, but no, don't trust them. It's Qidian. If they think they can get away with stabbing you in the back, they WILL stab you in the back. They don't subscribe to the philosophy, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." but instead, they subscribe to the philosophy of "If it makes money, go for it."

Yeah, that's the thing there is shit ton of stories over the years of authors being fucked in china by the big novel publishers, and there are many novels whose translations I followed, only for them to get info like "novel got stopped because it got in trouble with censors" or some shit, so I was wondering what is the case... but then, some of the top novels on RR and SH right now also publish on webnovel, so is that still the case? It seems that over time more and more webnovels authors do also post on webnovel.com (Sanguine paradise for example)

One of the difficulties of the site, is that you are competing on it against shit ton of chinese novels translated to english as well, which does seem to increase the difficulty.

Also, their numbers are sus. Their most popular novels.. have 2/4x the number of views most popular novels on RR have, taking into consideration the comic thing, it seems pretty unlikely, if not impossible. The comment/rating ratio to chapters, seems to agree with my hypothesis of inflating numbers


Finally, let's go through some points of their ToS ( https://www.webnovel.com/terms_of_service )

Important things:
1. "you and Webnovel agree that every dispute arising in connection with these Terms will be resolved by binding arbitration" and " Any arbitration between you and Webnovel will be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (”HKIAC”) under the Administrative Arbitration Rules of the Hong Kong" I'm not a lawyer , etc. but as far as I understand, this makes it impractical for pretty much anyone but the top top 1% of authors to fight them taking away your money if they would. Which they quite likely would. Small note here- it seems that in general the amount of cases about IP won by foreigners in chinese courts has increased in recent years, so that might be going for you.. but then there are cases where foreigno companies are just taken over and it takes courts 20 years to return them.. after they are not worth anything anymore.

2. According to their ToS, it seems (once again I'm not a lawyer) that they no longer take ownership of everything you have, just a licence to do what they want to do with your novel
"Limited License Grant to Webnovel. By posting or publishing User Content, you grant Webnovel a worldwide and non-exclusive right and license (with the right to sublicense to Webnovel affiliates solely in connection with their provision of the Services) to host, store, transfer, display, perform, reproduce, transmit, broadcast, modify (which is made solely for the purpose of formatting for display), and distribute your User Content, in whole or in part, in any media formats only through our Services.
6.3Limited License Grant to Other Users. By posting or sharing User Content with other users of the Service, you grant those users a non-exclusive license to access and use that User Content as permitted by these Terms and the functionality of the Service."


All in all, I'm torn, from one side I do have a lot of bad impressions of their company from their old ways, from the other, it is a site that's about as popular as royalroad (though important thing to note- they also have comics, which as far as I understand are their main source of traffic (basing on top novels vs top comics about 75% to 25% split)

Actually, it seems that @Kuropon is also releasing on webnovel, maybe you would like to share your experiences here with us? :P

 

[CadmarLegend]

Yeah, that's the thing there is shit ton of stories over the years of authors being fucked in china by the big novel publishers, and there are many novels whose translations I followed, only for them to get info like "novel got stopped because it got in trouble with censors" or some shit, so I was wondering what is the case... but then, some of the top novels on RR and SH right now also publish on webnovel, so is that still the case? It seems that over time more and more webnovels authors do also post on webnovel.com (Sanguine paradise for example)

One of the difficulties of the site, is that you are competing on it against shit ton of chinese novels translated to english as well, which does seem to increase the difficulty.

Also, their numbers are sus. Their most popular novels.. have 2/4x the number of views most popular novels on RR have, taking into consideration the comic thing, it seems pretty unlikely, if not impossible. The comment/rating ratio to chapters, seems to agree with my hypothesis of inflating numbers


Finally, let's go through some points of their ToS ( https://www.webnovel.com/terms_of_service )

Important things:
1. "you and Webnovel agree that every dispute arising in connection with these Terms will be resolved by binding arbitration" and " Any arbitration between you and Webnovel will be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (”HKIAC”) under the Administrative Arbitration Rules of the Hong Kong" I'm not a lawyer , etc. but as far as I understand, this makes it impractical for pretty much anyone but the top top 1% of authors to fight them taking away your money if they would. Which they quite likely would. Small note here- it seems that in general the amount of cases about IP won by foreigners in chinese courts has increased in recent years, so that might be going for you.. but then there are cases where foreigno companies are just taken over and it takes courts 20 years to return them.. after they are not worth anything anymore.

2. According to their ToS, it seems (once again I'm not a lawyer) that they no longer take ownership of everything you have, just a licence to do what they want to do with your novel
"Limited License Grant to Webnovel. By posting or publishing User Content, you grant Webnovel a worldwide and non-exclusive right and license (with the right to sublicense to Webnovel affiliates solely in connection with their provision of the Services) to host, store, transfer, display, perform, reproduce, transmit, broadcast, modify (which is made solely for the purpose of formatting for display), and distribute your User Content, in whole or in part, in any media formats only through our Services.
6.3Limited License Grant to Other Users. By posting or sharing User Content with other users of the Service, you grant those users a non-exclusive license to access and use that User Content as permitted by these Terms and the functionality of the Service."


All in all, I'm torn, from one side I do have a lot of bad impressions of their company from their old ways, from the other, it is a site that's about as popular as royalroad (though important thing to note- they also have comics, which as far as I understand are their main source of traffic (basing on top novels vs top comics about 75% to 25% split)

Actually, it seems that @Kuropon is also releasing on webnovel, maybe you would like to share your experiences here with us? :P

I think that the novels on WebNovel are actually supposed to be translations and not originals.... I believe inkstone is where originals go...

 

[KiraMinoru]

Also, their numbers are sus. Their most popular novels.. have 2/4x the number of views most popular novels on RR have, taking into consideration the comic thing, it seems pretty unlikely, if not impossible. The comment/rating ratio to chapters, seems to agree with my hypothesis of inflating numbers

This is what I observed when I used to post to it a year ago or so. The views are actually completely fudged and super easy to manipulate to a ridiculous degree. The views you see are not per chapter in novels, it is actually per X amount of words. So just as an example, if the chapter is 2k words and the amount of words required to count a view is 250, they will get it counted as 8 views the instant you open the chapter regardless of whether you read it or not. Also, if you just keep tapping to go to the next chapter and go from let’s say chapter 1-100 in a minute and the total words is 200k, you instantly get 800 views. If you really wanted, you could set up a macro on your keyboard to go back and forth between two chapters and you could get 1 million views in no time. Then their’s also the fact that the same person could leave a review every single day on your book to easily manipulate the ratings. It honestly doesn’t feel like they give a damn at all. I’ve seen countless novels with the same person rating for months on end.

There is also the ability to just straight up delete reviews.

 

[Reisinling]

I think that the novels on WebNovel are actually supposed to be translations and not originals.... I believe inkstone is where originals go...

Unless I'm missing something, Inkstone is a create part of webnovel, equivalent of "Create" dashboard on SH, so I don't know what you mean ( literally https://inkstone.webnovel.com/ ), and non translated novels show up in webnovel.com search, so you have to expand your objection

(EDIT: wrote watpadd instead of webnovel, sry)