Posting your Novel in Qidian Webnovels. Why and Why Not?

ChronicleCrawler

♠ItCrawls♠
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Okay, I saw all the drama with Qidian and WW. I didn't understand most of it. So in the end, I didn't care.
1586290838374.png
:whistle::whistle:

Nevertheless, I want to ask the authors about this since I'm still quite new in the field. The only places I know right now with a nice reader base are RR and Scribblehub and Webnovels(Qidian). I already posted a novel in RR and Scribblehub but never tried working with Webnovels after hearing something about them.:blob_cookie:

Anyway, my question is this;

Should I put my novel there? Why or why not. I need some writers here with experience dealing with them(Webnovels). Maybe this could also help other newbies out there.

Thanks for the advice!:blobtaco::blobtaco::blob_evil:
 

fullbios

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I didn't want to stress myself on Webnovels so I changed to Scribblehub in a jiffy as there is a Patreon support system here. I also did not want people to pay for my novels in case I get contracted! (Bruh I aim high.. my novel is not... up to that standards btw).. So yea.. Also I forgot why I felt this way specifically, but I may have read something (I forgot what is is) and I felt like posting on Webnovels will be an insult to myself... I have no idea why I felt that then.. But i'm sure I must've read some forums or smt. Maybe it was about webnovel being easy to plagiarize, and the support team is basically useless there? But yeah.. I decided to stay far away from Webnovels.
 

AliceShiki

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The more places you post in, the bigger the amount of readers you'll get~

So if you want more readers, I don't see why not. You might even get a contract offered if you're popular enough... Or maybe some patrons and stuff.

I don't see why not post there tbh.
 

fullbios

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OMG! I remember why I felt insulted! There was this thing about, people taking authors work and uploading to webnovels (Which for some reason they were approved of because some made money from those books). Of which many were illegal, and they never got licensed from the real author! Authors had to send in proof to Webnovel or smt that it was their work, and it would take months before the story may or may not be taken down? But yea... I won't post any of my novels there anyways as i'm afraid that the support team on webnovel would be unresponsive if I had a problem, and also because I want to support the Authors having their work stolen from them.
 

PolishedJerry

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I already wrote in Webnovel it is kinda good actually if you want to write in a blank space. But the standards there are pretty low in my opinion. And yes it is easy to be plagiarized in Webnovel.

Some say that their translation sucks I don't know.

I have already written on web novel and I didn't feel much vigor writing in a
blank slate filling it up.

But the fact that they have pretty low standards is one thing that I can agree with.

I saw the novels there and it is usually rated higher than the ratings in novel updates.
 
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binarysoap

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Webnovel is still additional exposure. Just don't sign a contract.

That being said, I've heard of some of the more unsavory things that happens on webnovel. For example, a certain SH author wanted to remove his story from webnovel. They claimed they don't have that function. In the end, the author changed the cover to something inappropriate (a naked guy with an exposed dick) and also changed the content into some porn, and after a long while, did they finally take the story down.
 

Sabruness

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webnovel is a den of questionable repute when it comes to posting there. never sign a contract because you'll likely be screwed over by it and even just posting there freely is a 'buyer beware' situation. Plagiarism is tacitly encouraged and once you're involved there, it's very hard to get out like soap says above.

Honestly, only do it if you're desperate IMO.
 

Amarathia

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Compared to webnovel, I liked Wattpad more. You have the chance to become a 'paid' version but it's not necessary, although I like the formatting and editing you are able to do on this website when writing a lottt better. But yeah, same thing for the extra exposure
 

ThunderingSnow

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I say no, just because their novel market is so saturated, you most likely will be drowned out by both the original and translated novels, where as here, it's mostly originals
 

OneSixSeven

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Compared to webnovel, I liked Wattpad more. You have the chance to become a 'paid' version but it's not necessary, although I like the formatting and editing you are able to do on this website when writing a lottt better. But yeah, same thing for the extra exposure

I do like Wattpad but there's no organizing part for chapters including the activity of user which lets the visitor see whether the user is active or not. Too bad Wattpad removed it for reasons I don't know.

I really hope that ScribbleHub will have that particular feature. It's a must for me.
 

CupcakeNinja

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OMG! I remember why I felt insulted! There was this thing about, people taking authors work and uploading to webnovels (Which for some reason they were approved of because some made money from those books). Of which many were illegal, and they never got licensed from the real author! Authors had to send in proof to Webnovel or smt that it was their work, and it would take months before the story may or may not be taken down? But yea... I won't post any of my novels there anyways as i'm afraid that the support team on webnovel would be unresponsive if I had a problem, and also because I want to support the Authors having their work stolen from them.
Bruh dont buy into that stuff, my main readerbase is at Webnovel. Support team responded pretty fast when i used the discord. Cant remember what was wrong butbi remember using text emojis and the guy said, "yeah it gets fucky if you use that sometimes " and the problem was solved

Anyway there is no reason not to use it.

Contracts? I got offered one, turned it down and just posted to Amazon and Google Playbooks but im thinking maybe the contract would have paid more. On the other hand it comes with contraints.

Webovel contracts inclue the following:
the contract gives them the rights to sell wherever they want
suggest what you write
Canhire another guy to write fo you if you dont comply
delay your pay up to 3 months and make you pay back all you earned during the contract if it's terminated.

But well its a situation of where they CAN but prolly wont. I would talk to someone regading that. Its just that its a job, you know? So they expect certain thing. Long as there aint no hardcore pedo stuff you can prolly get away with a lot but again ask someone who has had a contract. Maybe go to the discord snd ask.

And if you dont want people posting your work there, post it yourself.

A cool feature of webnovel is people who read your story through the app can leave comments on PARAGRAPHS. Which is neat. I love that.

I use webnovel a lot. Find no real downside. MAYBE worry about possible contract stuff when it gets to that point. But for now i highly recommend it.

Listen pal, i hated qi too for its shady shit. And im a long time Nuffian. Been part of the community since near the beginning.

but don't let that stuff get in the way of posting where you want. Webnovel can gain you a lot of readers, a lot more than RRL, Wattpad and SH. Its just that big.

i aint gonna stop using it without good reason myself. And if people gonna steal your work, they will do it whether you post it there or not. Its happened to me, and honestly i dont even mind cuz my name as the author usually gets in there (or you can leave a watermark in the middle of chapters too, saying, "this was published by Cupcake Ninja at Scribblehub.com " or whatever too) and thats just doing work for me. I gain readers, maybe, from wherever these thieves post my work. Maybe they dont keep up to date very often, but still. Its free distribution.

so yeah. Using Webnovel is.fine dont pay attention to people who tell ya different cuz thats likely just bias unless we get proof they got fucked over. And even then it onlyatters if they were under contract.

which again you can just post to amazon or google with risk of not being paid very much. From what i can tell, i aint even earning much myself right now. Not that i need it..and really i should look up how to advertise my story better...but I'll decide later if i care that much about it. I never posted for the money anyway. I just figured "hey maybe it can fund my pastry and Aqua Fresca addiction or something " and it ses like it can. So for me thats fine
 

Kotohood

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I mean why not? Ignoring the shady owners, the readers are legit.

The only thing about webnovel is that, they censor the word patreon and the links to patreon, but there are ways around that.

Honestly speaking its a pretty good place to get more exposure. Plus, it's better for you as the author to post there before someone else plagiarise you and post there.

Tons of readers there as well, if your aim is not money, then it's a good place to post in conjunction with the other sites imo.

Ps: the editor in webnovel is shit though. Their contract is crap too.
 

LostinMovement

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I have heard of their allegedly 'shady' contracts but personally, I haven't had a single bad experience with them so far. I have actually gained considerable exposure there, more that SH and RR combined. I have several faithful readers who always comment on new chapters and sen me msgs all the time. My readerbase there are much generous with their reviews and they are very supportive. In my personal opinion, it is much better than Wattpad. Wattpad was a horrible place for me as a novice writer, I struggled to even get 10 views on a chapter. So, I guess it depends on how you look at things. Personally, if they have ever came to me with a contract, I wouldn't sign it because I don't like other ppl having the rights to my sweat and tears. Other than that, there is nothing to stop you from publishing your works there.
 

Cedestroyer

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Webnovel have a fake view system where if you view something, it multiplies it by a factor (probably by how many chapters the story has). You can fake your own views by clicking a specific chapter then returning to the homepage and keep repeating it.
 

Ace_Arriande

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Dang, there're a bunch of posts in defense of WN here. That... was unexpected to see, to say the least. Anyways, here are my reasons not to and to stay as far away from them as you can:

That being said, I've heard of some of the more unsavory things that happens on webnovel. For example, a certain SH author wanted to remove his story from webnovel. They claimed they don't have that function. In the end, the author changed the cover to something inappropriate (a naked guy with an exposed dick) and also changed the content into some porn, and after a long while, did they finally take the story down.

Reporting for duty. :blob_paint:

1. First and foremost, they refuse to delete your stories if you ever change your mind and want to take them down. You can email them, threaten legal action - whatever. Once you upload your stories there, WN refuses to remove them. However, you can still do what I did: take down all the chapters, upload gay porn as a cover picture, and then spam new chapters to get people to see it and report it. Some people here are mentioning the WN staff being pretty good. They sure were good when they took 2 months to delete a story that had 3k followers on it for having a cover image of a white guy sucking a black dick. This is also after lying saying they literally do not have the ability to remove stories, despite removing stories that are DMCA'ed and my own in the end.

2. You can say goodbye to any text formatting. No italics, no underlines, no bold - nothing. You get capitalization, punctuation marks, and paragraphs. Nothing else.

3. The quality of readers and reviewers there is lower than anywhere else. If you want to feel good about having inflated numbers that may or may not be from bots while getting a bunch of reviews that say "thnxxxx very cool 10000/10" 20 times in a row, then go for it, but if you want actual critique and valuable feedback, you're not going to find it on WN. Imagine the most stereotypically horrible YouTube comment section that you can think of, make it even worse, and you've got yourself WN's comments and review sections.

4. The readers there don't convert into long-term fans. They don't care about you, the author. They only want whatever story you're posting and you better be posting nearly every single day or else you're barely going to get any exposure. Slower posting schedules just don't work on WN. Furthermore, these readers aren't going to follow you to your personal site, to your Discord, to your social media - whatever. Even when I had a combined total of 5k readers on WN, I didn't receive even a slight boost to Patreon pledges, there was no increase to my social media follows or people joining my Discord server, no boost to my personal website's traffic - nothing. WN readers will pay... as long as you're on their platform and have signed a contract, and there's no way that I would ever sign their contract. Entire writeups have been done on just how trash their contract is and why nobody should ever sign it. It's there to take advantage of desperate authors who feel like they have no other choice, or simply aren't aware of their other choices. If you can make money on WN, you can make significantly more money following a more traditional Patreon/Amazon route. There is literally no reason to accept their contract other than to be a masochist who wants to be used and abused.

Now, your mileage may vary, of course. There are people here reporting positive results with WN that contradict everything I've said. All I can do is give you my opinion based off of my own personal experience and the experiences of many other authors I've talked to who have had nothing but horrible experiences with WN.

EDIT: Also, some receipts because why not?
1586343238903.png

So, again, that's: one, straight up lying; and two, why would you want to post somewhere where they refuse to delete your content and account upon request?
 

BenJepheneT

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EDIT: Also, some receipts because why not?
1586343238903.png

So, again, that's: one, straight up lying; and two, why would you want to post somewhere where they refuse to delete your content and account upon request?
You cannot, and I say this with all sincerity, cannot make it any more obvious that this is a template.

They don't even bother filling one name up.

I might be reaching but the inability to fill in one name says a lot about efficiency in an organisation.
 

Silver_Sky

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I would like to add one thing I'm not an author due to my poor grammar BUT I am a committed reader and I use novel updates frequently but NU does NOT follow webnovel your story wont get updated at all, I have seen stories with 1000s of chapters on Qi but with 80 chapters on NU so there is a MASSIVE loss in exposure there.

I also agree with what was said above if your upload time isn't every day you lose following, as well as it simply doesn't matter what quality the story is it still is a story.

Third they can and WILL mess with ratings and other things if your story is of interest to them. I was reading endless path and the author was endlessly complaining about continually dropping in ratings and reviews, even though the story is good (although the mc is trash, my own view) because he didn't sign. I also got a new phone and got a bit of time didn't bother to sign in and went to type in the title and no book shown with the title.
All in all there are better ways to get your story out there.
 

Daoist_Aileus

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As someone who has received a contract offer from Qidian; it depends on your perspective of what you want to do with your novel, I have to put empathise on your because the contract entails that you sign over the rights to that universe to them and any work linked to said novel if it exists. Additionally, I may be misinterpreting this part as although my speciality is law Contract Law isn't really my thing, the contract details that they can legally replace you if they're not satisfied with your work & they may decide when and how you finish the work.

Of course, the biggest con is the percentage cut that you receive as to why you can read on different forums simply by searching up "The Webnovel Contract is a Scam" it brings up quite a few threads.

As someone who does post to QI however, I do have to say that the exposure can be worth it if you just want to spread your story - Also:

Third they can and WILL mess with ratings and other things if your story is of interest to them. I was reading endless path and the author was endlessly complaining about continually dropping in ratings and reviews, even though the story is good (although the mc is trash, my own view) because he didn't sign. I also got a new phone and got a bit of time didn't bother to sign in and went to type in the title and no book shown with the title.
All in all there are better ways to get your story out there.

This specifically is a problem, they can and have done this which is why they're considered the shadiest webnovel site even among sites that simply rip translations from the source (although they have done that as well -_- )
 
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