I responded to the poll~
I do have a few thoughts that may or may not be helpful.
1. Regarding contracts with online publishers
In Western writing communities, authors tend to dislike and distrust contracts with publishing platforms. This is much more common on Chinese sites and virtually non-existent on Western sites. When qidian/webnovel initially launched, many authors thought the contracts were very suspicious and distrusted them.
In my opinion, the webfiction industry is more mature/advanced in China than in the West. The Chinese community is larger and the reader base is more willing to pay for online novels than Western readers are (who by-in-large always read for free). Some authors in the West publish their chapters early on patreon (and release it for everyone later), but their stories are almost never paywalled.
Some authors are interested in publishing ebook forms of their novels on Amazon after completing their story.
2. Things that authors like on ScribbleHub
Most authors seem to care a lot about their statistics, ratings, and reader interactions. We regularly have drama about how the ranking and rating system works (whether it's fair, too many 1-star ratings), and ScribbleHub in particular has a unique ranking system on the front page that brings exposure to smaller authors.
I personally think it would be nice if there was something about a website that incentivized readers to leave comments or reviews. I think it would be cool if there was a system that allowed readers to gain points from comments/reviews, and then readers could use those points to vote for their favorite works on a leaderboard/ranking.
3. Regarding editors
Most authors on Western sites are expected to find their own editors, and a majority of works go unedited. I don't think authors expect to receive editors from their publishing site.
Since most Western works are unedited (and unproofread), I think it would be cool if there was a system that allowed readers to suggest edits to the author, particularly when it comes to typos and other small mistakes.
As a side note, 50% of ScribbleHub's user base does not speak English as a first language. Consequently, a lot of works have grammar mistakes, and I think that some authors might appreciate having an editor. It might be interesting if there was a way to create a community that freely encourages/incentivizes writers and editors to interact with each other... but something like this has never been tried before.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be interesting if authors could put a flag on their work: "Interested in public edits", and then editors registered on the website could find the work and suggest edits to earn points... for something like a game...? At this rate, we are talking more about a writing community than a publishing platform. Not all authors are interested in feedback though. Some authors are very sensitive and don't like criticism.
forum.scribblehub.com
