Web-reading platforms have become so popular in the last several years that many companies have started to follow the trend. From California to Singapore, these start-ups are competing to attract the best authors and most loyal readers.
Most well-performing stories fall in the romance and fantasy genres. You’ll see that books with “CEO” and “werewolves” themes are labeled “popular” on their homepages. And it seems like the trends circle around these two character types. Interestingly, although “werewolves” stories are based on Western myths, many writers come from non-Western countries. On the other hand, there are Asian paranormal stories written by Western authors along with other stories are based on Asian cultures.
In the traditional publishing world, where writers from non-Western countries may have little chance of having their works published, these web-writing platforms enable that. And in the traditional publishing world, where Western writers may get in trouble for writing something outside their cultures, these writing platforms allow that, too.
Major publishers may think that picking writers from the correct group will boost the story quality, but after reading some stories published on these platforms, I doubt this reasoning. Writers should be allowed to write any stories they have in mind—as long as it’s good and respectful toward the cultures they’re writing about. Moreover, limiting one’s “specialty” to specifically fit their cultural background seems to be discriminatory, even if it is well-intended.
National preferences vary
Some writing platforms allow non-English stories, which opens up the opportunity to those who don’t write in English. International writers can now use these platforms to publish their work in their native languages and find new readers. This trend has generated strong interest from local writers and readers.
Because, sometimes, people want different types of content. Werewolves may be popular in the English web-fiction scene but in Indonesia, for instance, the most popular themes are about family life and marital issues. You’ll find some CEO stories too, but they’re not too popular.
Some platforms, like GoodNovel and MegaNovel, split their stories into two groups: male-targeted and female-targeted. When you read the English version, this differentiation doesn’t seem to affect the readership that much, as both sex groups seem to like the same things.
On the Indonesian page, however, the difference seems to be a bit more prevalent. While romance dominates female-targeted stories, the male-targeted page is filled with action and horror. However, these two types of content are rare, which makes me wonder if they’ll drop the sex-based grouping one day or if they’ll find more male writers to create more male-targeted content.
There are also social media groups for web fiction writers and readers, which have members from all over the world. And they’re a great supportive network too. Writers can share their works, while readers can find stories they like and write reviews about them. Writers also use these groups to encourage each other and to exchange feedback with one another.
Rewarded work
Besides regularly launching writing competitions, these web-writing platforms attract new writers with a reward. The kinds of rewards the companies offer vary from one to another.
Inkitt, for instance, offers writers with the best-performing stories a traditional publishing contract with their book publishing wing, Galatea. This Germany-based company uses a special method to measure the popularity of a book and predict its salability.
Asian-based companies such as WebNovel, MegaNovel, Dreame, and GoodNovel, on the other hand, offer direct payment to their authors. Contracted Authors will get a sign-up bonus which can range from USD 50 to USD 100, depending on the platform. There are other types of bonuses, such as a weekly update bonus or a monthly update bonus, and a completion bonus. The amount can start from USD 50 to USD 200.
It might be important to note that to get those bonuses, contracted authors are obliged to write a very large amount of words. For some platforms, contracted authors will only receive their sign-up bonuses once they’ve written 30,000 words. For others, the word count can reach up to 50,000 words. Completion bonuses will only be sent to the authors when they’ve written more than 100k or 200k words. The amount can be from USD 100 to USD 150, depending on the platforms.
Those numbers may seem small for experienced authors but they don’t stop aspiring writers from applying for a contract. The sad reality is, for many writers, this is the best contract they ever come across. The only one available for them.
But still, in some countries, those few hundred bucks are a lot. A writer in a freelancers’ group I joined mentioned that they made a significant financial improvement from becoming a contracted author on such a platform. And in another group, some writers (no nationalities mentioned) said they quit their jobs to write full-time.
It would be better though if these platforms went easy on copyright rules. Some platforms ask for 10 years of exclusive rights. Others stipulate that writers will automatically lose their rights to their book once they sign an exclusive contract.
But those who love writing web novels get their words out to an audience they may never reach otherwise, and readers embrace this.
Image: Anna Demianenko