What do authors need and want?

Darthclem

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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.
A google doc like editing system would be cool although you could have a ton of people making a bunch of suggestions.
 

minacia

perpetually sour
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A google doc like editing system would be cool although you could have a ton of people making a bunch of suggestions.
Maybe, although it depends on the way it's designed. I think most readers tend not to interact very much.

If you gave authors the ability to block certain accounts from making suggestions (i.e. got tired of too many spam suggestions), I pretty much feel like you would have all the bases covered.
 

Cossimeri

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I use Scrivner and absolutely love it to pieces. I realize that Scrivner costs money but honestly I can't imagine using an app that doesn't have at least close to the same features:

The name generator tool is super helpful when I'm writing a new background/secondary character and can't think of a name.

I love the binder feature that allows me to quickly jump between my research documents (character backstories, reference images, world documents), and my chapters. Also, the ability to have a split editor window and have one document beside another is wonderful when I need to reference a past chapter or the aforementioned research documents.

Mac / iOS versions of Scrivner have dark mode and the windows version should be getting it soon. (I'm at the point where I actively dislike anything that doesn't offer a dark mode. It is common enough that I just expect it at this point).

I don't know how complex you wanna make your thing, but Scrivner is my gold medal "best experience I've ever had" writing app. So I'll look to it for ideas for your writing app.
 

Jamminrabbit

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I need someone to step on me. Preferably an ara ara onee-sama with stilettos.
 
D

Deleted member 45782

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i want something that was what wattpad used to be like. (i miss how it used to be). ~_~

but setting that aside, i'm hoping for a good writing platform + good writing tools + big sized writing community to share, get feedback and publicity on. maybe a way for writers to commercialize their own original work.

Has a variety of genres (including things like poetry, sci-fi, etc. that maybe aren't as popular in some places) and is not very, very specific genre-focused (some places are on romance, some are litrpg, some are isekai...). i do realize though this is based on the community of that writing platform itself so yeah.

It would be nice to have some markdown when we're writing our stories (inkitt doesn't seem have much markdown to write with). i like how some writer tool apps give us an option to write plots, scenes, character descriptions, etc. - it would be cool to see it combined with a good sharing writing platform would be cool. A lot more variety of tags (+genres) to tag stories in. auto-save feature.

but for now, I'm think i'm good with exploring scribblehub (since it has great markdown). decent variety of genres on here too. i still got to explore royal road now that this reminds me...
 
D

Deleted member 45782

Guest
I use Scrivner and absolutely love it to pieces. I realize that Scrivner costs money but honestly I can't imagine using an app that doesn't have at least close to the same features:

The name generator tool is super helpful when I'm writing a new background/secondary character and can't think of a name.

I love the binder feature that allows me to quickly jump between my research documents (character backstories, reference images, world documents), and my chapters. Also, the ability to have a split editor window and have one document beside another is wonderful when I need to reference a past chapter or the aforementioned research documents.

Mac / iOS versions of Scrivner have dark mode and the windows version should be getting it soon. (I'm at the point where I actively dislike anything that doesn't offer a dark mode. It is common enough that I just expect it at this point).

I don't know how complex you wanna make your thing, but Scrivner is my gold medal "best experience I've ever had" writing app. So I'll look to it for ideas for your writing app.
sounds pretty cool. interesting.
 

K5Rakitan

Level 34 👪 💍 Pronouns: she/whore ♀
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Does it come with free condoms?
 

TLCsDestiny

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You make it sound like we have this huge difference to others...we are...mostly normal lol.
 

JayDirex

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Kiki-bot,

Authors want READERS period. we want READERS. We want you to build a system that will siphon and market the right readers to our work, by Genre, and PROMOTE US so we get F'kn views.

Notice how selfish my response is BUT YOU ASKED. we are up here posting because we want EYEBALLS TO READ OUR STORIES and hopefully comment. ( i ask too much, i know).

@kikiaoi9901
 

kikiaoi9901

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Kiki-bot,

Authors want READERS period. we want READERS. We want you to build a system that will siphon and market the right readers to our work, by Genre, and PROMOTE US so we get F'kn views.

Notice how selfish my response is BUT YOU ASKED. we are up here posting because we want EYEBALLS TO READ OUR STORIES and hopefully comment. ( i ask too much, i know).

@kikiaoi9901
well glad you replied me but I'm not a bot haha.

and it will be a writing tool so... I think only a platform with a large audience can help increase your readers!
 

TheTrinary

Hi, I'm Stephen
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I saw those Chinese characters on the tab and noped right out.
 
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