The Idiocy of Webnovel.com

VoxPopulist

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My reasons mainly have to do with the fact that it over time it was made nearly impossible for new novels to get much recognition. That is, unless if you sell the rights to them. Another reason would be that the popular novels on webnovel are really stupid and there are rarely any good ones.
Out of the heaps of garbage on WN, there are probably about two good novels on the whole site that get attention, the rest simply don't want to sign over their book to WN so they don't get traction on the site. Sites like this and RR, which are ya know sites for authors, not profit, usually contain the actual quality fiction.

 

Daitengu

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There was also the great tag reform. It removed alot of tags from novels so you can't even find things like 'female protagonist' or 'female mc' anymore. And maybe one in ten 'complete' novels are actually complete. The rest are hiatus and dropped.
 

cheriechechan

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Same thing happend to my stories after I posted it there. It bothered me at first but nah who cares? They have weird genre set-up after all. Story wise, you can read a lot of typical and annoying romance/love exaggerated story plots over there. Their sudden offering of contracts are also suspicious too.
 

RayneStorm

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Same thing happend to my stories after I posted it there. It bothered me at first but nah who cares? They have weird genre set-up after all. Story wise, you can read a lot of typical and annoying romance/love exaggerated story plots over there. Their sudden offering of contracts are also suspicious too.
the actual contracts themselves are horrendous. people lose the rights to their stories and even their names when they sign
 

cheriechechan

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the actual contracts themselves are horrendous. people lose the rights to their stories and even their names when they sign
Oh I see. I Will take note on this one since they suspiciously offered me one. I'm a newbie there so Thank you.
 

RayneStorm

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Oh I see. I Will take note on this one since they suspiciously offered me one. I'm a newbie there so Thank you.
You can do more research. There are people who broke down the contract and explained how dangerous they were. I would say don't get mixed up with them. They tend to send those emails to new writers who don't know better
 

lnv

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WN doesn't care one way or the other. Their mobile site for example is INTENTIONALLY broken. So they can force people to use their app.

I say intentionally, cause if you go on your mobile phone/tablet into their website, and switch to desktop mode, the website gets faster. And the desktop website is even more faster. Normally, mobile sites tend to be lighter and faster than the desktop counterparts. And switching to desktop mode shouldn't make a website faster. Effectively, they check if you are on mobile, and intentionally cripple their experience.

If you ask them why, they will tell you to use their mobile app.

In China, they have total control, and they got used to this thing. So they don't care for what anyone wants, they just do whatever they feel like and demand that their use base like it.
 

Kenjona

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I am on Webnovel, it is a hard slog through to find gems amongst the Dross. But sometimes you find them, hopefully they are not on hiatus/dropped. If the stars align correctly and you really get lucky there is a mention in the authors notes that they are also posting on Scribble hub or Royal road or anywhere else for that matter.

I admit, once I hit the Webnovel paywalls, I go to scrapper sites for the content.
 

LynaForge

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I am on Webnovel, it is a hard slog through to find gems amongst the Dross. But sometimes you find them, hopefully they are not on hiatus/dropped. If the stars align correctly and you really get lucky there is a mention in the authors notes that they are also posting on Scribble hub or Royal road or anywhere else for that matter.

I admit, once I hit the Webnovel paywalls, I go to scrapper sites for the content.
I'm a hard-scramble author trying to find fertile reading ground. Do you mind if I ask what your favorite site is?
 

LynaForge

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Erm, what do you mean by super competitive?
I mean it's difficult to gain visibility as there are millions of stories vying for eyes. But then again, when I put it like that, it does feel pretty impossible. I've gone ahead and put links in my signature but they are a bit big... :whistle:
 

SailusGebel

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I mean it's difficult to gain visibility as there are millions of stories vying for eyes. But then again, when I put it like that, it does feel pretty impossible. I've gone ahead and put links in my signature but they are a bit big... :whistle:
I don't know what to say. If you want less competition, you should probably look for newer sites.
 

LynaForge

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I don't know what to say. If you want less competition, you should probably look for newer sites.
Yes. I think that's a good idea. That is why I am asking others where they like to read from. I figured that would be a safer way to find new sites but I'm not sure.
 

SilvCrimBlac

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Anyone looking for other (and smaller) site for exposure, I'll post a short list of other and smaller sites I know of. I will say your personal experiences with the site will vary so do not complain to me if the site somehow gives you issues. I'm just the messenger. Nothing more.

1) Fictionpress.com (Post specifically in the Manga section. Anywhere else and it's likely dead. The Manga section is the only one that has any reasonable amount of activity. I have found the Adventure and Fantasy areas still get poster, and sometimes the Action area....but so far, Manga has more reoccuring posters while Fantasy, Adventure, and Action...it just depends. Post in Manga section.)

2) Honeyfeed.fm (Honestly don't know much about them. @BenJepheneT would be the better person to ask about this one)

3) Creativenovels.com (I know one guy who posted here once back when he was still writing, @Discount_Blade , he told me there was a queue. Meaning they would post your work, but there was like a waiting list or something. It took his story 4 days to get accepted while someone else Discount knows took a week. I'm not sure if it's still this way seeing as this was 1 and a half years ago, maybe 2?. Hard to tell now. The waiting list thing might be gone now or it might've just been because it was a new site at the time?)

4) Foxteller.com (Initially it looks like a translation site, and about a year ago, it was basically the owner and a group of their own personal friends and a few outsiders that they invited, and so the site was small. I don't know if its gotten any bigger, but I know it accepts originals and it even has a discord channel. Don't know it. I'm sure you can find it yourselves. The owner was pretty eager to get new people in last time I checked so I'm sure she'd love to have anyone at all and would appreciate you guys advertising for her too.)

5) neoread.neovel.io/discover (I'm placing the link because otherwise the site is fairly hard to find so I don't know how large it is, it seems active due to there always being new entries every time I stop by and take a look at it. No idea how it works, I just know that it takes originals. Discover it for yourself.

6) Tapas (I know nothing at all about Tapas except that it apparently was made for webcomic people (I apparently. It's what I heard) but I have known several people who switched over to posting their web novel originals and they seem to enjoy it so if it works for them, maybe it'll work for you to? Again, I have no personal experience with the place, just the word of others who use it and like it.)

7) Moonquill.com (Has a discord. Last time I was there, over a year ago, the interface was clunky and its forums were deader than even the deadest period of RR''s dead forums, though RR's forums are by far more active than they used to be, I do not know if Moonquill has gotten more active or fixed their interface or whatever its called. Anyway, I know quite a few people who post on Moonquill. Don't know how large the site is personally, but it accepts originals and I've heard no complaints about it. Try it out for yourself.)

8) YoungWritersSociety (This one is....different. You can post originals, but the interest here is different from what most here would like, and it requires you to read and review or leave comments on other people's work to gain points, points which you then spend on posting your own work. Basically, it makes you read a fellow writers work and comment in order to post your own.)


I'm sure there are other sites but these are the smaller sites I personally know of besides RoyalRoad, Webnovel, and Scribblehub, which I guess are the Big 3?

There are other sites like Mibba, Getunderlined, and Wattpad, but I personally don't recommend them. They were worse than Webnovel in my opinion, which is impressive in its own way. I hope this help, and I hope it helps these smaller sites grow if they are indeed good places for writers.


Also, I did not make this post to take anything from Scribblehub, so please no PM's. I did this to help people find other avenues to spread their work for extra exposure. Do not make accusations. We are all writers here. Regardless of our personal opinions of one another, we all seek to work our own art right? Let's not forget that.

If I need to make a separate thread for this, let me know.
 
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