What is your opinion of Webnovel.com?

[IDreamNovels]

To start writing in RR, do you need to pay something, or is it free like the webnovel until you accept a contract?

It's free. You just need to first prove that you are the original author(to avoid plagiarism). There is a premium section for authors that lets you use advanced features, though.

 

[KaraKuriKurari]

To start writing in RR, do you need to pay something, or is it free like the webnovel until you accept a contract?

You can post your story in RR freely they don't charge you, but they have a premium package for the author and reader.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Disregarding all the usual "bad Chinese company is bad and unethical" stuff that somebody else will probably cover:

As a reader, as far as I know, the only reason to really dislike it is the pay-to-unlock system where you basically end up paying per chapter. But honestly, it's just a more micro version of locking chapters in bulk behind Patreon walls which far fewer people complain about. Though, some readers might be put off by the hundreds upon hundreds of "reviews" that are 5 stars with copy-pasted text that literally reads like "Fdshgghrfesdhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." You can't really trust any numbers on there to be legitimate.

As an author, they are manipulative, unresponsive, and absolute utter shit. First off, if you post your stories to their platform and then want to delete them, there's no way to do it. If you email them and ask them to please remove your stories, they will lie to you in your face and say that they can't. That they literally can not delete the stories (despite somehow doing it whenever DMCA'ed). I had to upload gay porn to my cover and spam copyrighted material into my stories for 3 months in order to get Webnovel to finally realize I was breaking the rules and to delete my stories. Then there's all the controversy regarding their contract which is basically putting you into slave labor while taking complete ownership of your series away from you for less pay than you would make pursuing the normal Patreon -> Amazon route. Then there's not being able to use italicized/bolded/underlined text which is all extremely simple but not possible at all there, which is pretty silly. That being said, to try and be fair here, they have an excellent portal for authors with tons of stat tracking. Their author portal is honestly the best one out of all web serial platforms I know of.

So, it's alright for readers but shit for authors unless they're desperate, clueless, or just don't care about being taken advantage of.

why not just replace the chapter contents with something else tho? I didn't know you couldn't delete stories from there....

so when I published my works to Amazon, because I didn't wanna delete the chapters from there, I just ended up replacing the contents with a short explanation as to why they aren't there.

 

[Ral]

I heard that it can be bad to the authors but then there are like LamenThief who praise it as the best platform ever (and think SH is the worst) so . . . it has both good and bad?

As a reader, I don't particularly care about the Chinese novels they are known for. Any other novels that aren't Chinese aren't any better from what I read from other platforms (considering that many are also published in other platforms). Content-wise it is on par with other platforms but since I practically have identical experience in terms in content, I often choose to read in RR and SH.

They have a nice site, but then I don't really need much.

Overall, for me, just another alternative platform. Not any worse or better than other platforms though I don't go there often.

 

[SailusGebel]

Not so long ago, they were going through an inspection and hid all the novels with r-18 rating\suggestive cover. You had to change all these things yourself. It's not much, but it kind of speaks for themselves on how they treat their authors.

Their discord that 'helps' authors is very bad. I remember asking them a question because I've met a bug on the site. No one helped me, even the editor ignored this, yet the same editor wanted me to sign the contract.

Also, they boast that their company\site is the biggest, yet they have so little editors\helping staff. I don't understand it.

Still, I've put my novel there. For extra exposure and so no one would steal it.

 

[KaraKuriKurari]

Not so long ago, they were going through an inspection and hid all the novels with r-18 rating\suggestive cover. You had to change all these things yourself. It's not much, but it kind of speaks for themselves on how they treat their authors.

Their discord that 'helps' authors is very bad. I remember asking them a question because I've met a bug on the site. No one helped me, even the editor ignored this, yet the same editor wanted me to sign the contract.

Also, they boast that their company\site is the biggest, yet they have so little editors\helping staff. I don't understand it.

Still, I've put my novel there. For extra exposure and so no one would steal it.

I watched a video on youtube about Webnovel, from the translator side of story though, the youtuber said that he was offered to translate with a fee of 8$/1000 chinese words. The youtuber also said that normally the pay rates is higher than that. So, I think maybe they're also underpaying their editors?

Then I realized that most of them seems to be Indonesian, malaysian names, 8$ in some growing asian countries that's already a pretty good amount of money if you earn that much /day.

 

[SailusGebel]

I watched a video on youtube about Webnovel, from the translator side of story though, the youtuber said that he was offered to translate with a fee of 8$/1000 chinese words. The youtuber also said that normally the pay rates is higher than that. So, I think maybe they're also underpaying their editors?

Then I realized that most of them seems to be Indonesian, malaysian names, 8$ in some growing asian countries that's already a pretty good amount of money if you earn that much /day.

I'm not so interested in this. I'm not an editor, nor am I a translator. I'm a newbie author, a beginner. The biggest and the greatest company opens up a discord server that is meant to newbies. For people like me. And there is one and a half helper, while nearly 200-400 hundred newbies. One of the helpers is their top50 author, whose only job is to answer the question if this is a scam. And other users answer your questions with something like this. "God, you are so stupid, go and walk out of your window." Or they say "look at the pinned comments". Nice help. With such an attitude and total lack of staff, it's better to write guidelines, make a faq, and so on.

This is my experience, and this isn't pleasant, to say the least. I don't care if there is a 'toxic' users and so on, as long as I get help. But I never got it. Not from the top author. Not from the users. And no help from the content editor.

 

[Maple-Leaf]

Post your novel on Webnovel the sooner the better or some "reader/fan of your work" will do it in your stead one day with an excuse that everyone is doing it.

Ah yes, I remember that event.

 

[IDreamNovels]

Ah yes, I remember that event.

Which event?

 

[Maple-Leaf]

Which event?

A book on wattpad was copy pasted onto Webnovel. A few of the readers (ChubbyLiv included) left reviews saying it was stolen and I believe the "author" deleted the chapters or something like that. I wasn't there at the time, so I really don't know much. You should ask her if you're curious

 

[ChubbyLiv]

A book on wattpad was copy pasted onto Webnovel. A few of the readers (ChubbyLiv included) left reviews saying it was stolen and I believe the "author" deleted the chapters or something like that. I wasn't there at the time, so I really don't know much. You should ask her if you're curious

Spoiler: Screenshot. They cut the original author's name from the original cover picture, and immediately received power ranking n.27.

Spoiler: After an attack of angry fans, the culprit changed the cover of the book, LOL.

Fuck all of y'all
My friend is writing a book he told me it's not his book
I didn't see any problems in me posting it on Webnovel since I liked it and couldn't find the original author until someone comment who it was, and I downloaded Wattpad just to confirm but I didn't think some people here are so petty. How many authors take credit here for novels that's not theirs?
I gonna tell y'all other authors won't
I gonna keep posting if the original author agree and fuck y'all again

Spoiler: More fans got angry, the culprit had to take it down. Because Webnovel doesn't allow you to delete a book, he/she changed the title and cover.

 

[KaraKuriKurari]

Spoiler: Screenshot. They cut the original author's name from the original cover picture, and immediately received power ranking n.27.

View attachment 4282

Spoiler: After an attack of angry fans, the culprit changed the cover of the book, LOL.

View attachment 4283
Fuck all of y'all
My friend is writing a book he told me it's not his book
I didn't see any problems in me posting it on Webnovel since I liked it and couldn't find the original author until someone comment who it was, and I downloaded Wattpad just to confirm but I didn't think some people here are so petty. How many authors take credit here for novels that's not theirs?
I gonna tell y'all other authors won't
I gonna keep posting if the original author agree and fuck y'all again

Spoiler: More fans got angry, the culprit had to take it down. Because Webnovel doesn't allow you to delete a book, he/she changed the title and cover.

View attachment 4284

Jesus Crist so many drama...

 

[KaraKuriKurari]

has anyone ever received this kind of message it looks really suspicious

 

[Chaaruzu_Corner]

No matter what your opinion is of webnovel.com, it's still better than Wattpad lol xD

 

[OneSixSeven]

No matter what your opinion is of webnovel.com, it's still better than Wattpad lol xD

(2) Too bad there is not much for italics there including the note. There's also no option of deleting the story. Also the paywall itself can be a pain in the arse.

 

[xluferx]

Honest opinion?
Is because of them that I start d used pirate sites

 

[NotYourTypicalMan]

They taught me how to become a pirate aka wuxiaworld.co

 

[Kuropon]

I put one of my stories there and it sucks, the site goes out of its way to not let people advertise your patreon. No tables or formating on it either its meant to be read on the phone.

 

[AVL]

as a dude who's been writing on WN since 2018, I can easily tell you that WN is a good platform if you want:

1. Easy Money 2. A small fanbase 3.Contracts ( No matter how bad they are)

I've seen authors scam ppl through patreon or paypal, so it's a very unreliable site.

WN author quality is pretty bad though, so you won't feel bad if you're utter shit.

Oh yeah, it's a bad site for authors too, since you can't use bold/italic or anything like tables.

 

[AncestralIdiot]

I had to upload gay porn to my cover and spam copyrighted material into my stories for 3 months in order to get Webnovel to finally realize I was breaking the rules and to delete my stories.

Holy... what a good move.