Contracts. WN will push and advertise contracted books that bring in money. I don't know how much their numbers are being fudged, but I rarely trust WN ratings, lists, etc, after hearing and reading about the manipulation going on with those numbers.
Anyway, this is just my understanding, so take it with a grain of salt.
That's right. They are a business. There's simply no reason for them to push book with no contract.
Regarding stats, you can manipulate views, reviews, or powerstone, or even collections (equivalent to SH readers) with alts or bots, but those things does not matter one bit. Because in the end, no matter how much you artificially pump numbers up, the only thing that matter is how much the book make. Powerstones are useless except for only the top 10 stories to be featured on the front page. Collections are useless too, a book can have thousands of collection but no paid readers.
And also, if anyone get caught botting, other authors and readers can report and mods will ban.
I don't understand why and how most of the books on the Power Ranking and Popular Ranking are there.
No offense to the translators, authors and fans. But there is no way, out of hundredths or thousands of books, THOSE are the ones getting all the visibility and people's support. Makes no sense.
The stories I'm talking about are either migraine inducing translations, horrible written, stories that seem generated by an old version of ChatGPT with how little sense they make, the epitome of cliches or a combination of all four.
Again, I don't want to offend anyone. Just trying to find sense in this.
Sometimes I wonder that myself too, that how the hell stories that read so shit, AI can get so much views and paid readers. Unfortunately, that's the reality.
To me, Webnovel is more of a game. those who know how the game works will have the highest chance of success.
Because there are a few things that can make a book extremely popular:
- A really sexy cover with big booba. Even when your MC is male, use big booba cover. DO IT!
- Harem smut
- Meta tropes: Reincarnated as Extra, Beast taming, Reincarnated as Noble/Aristocrats, SSS systems, smut system...
If a story can have one, two, or god forbid, all of those things, they will get HUGE clicks and follows in the beginning and can easily make money even when writing is shit. And then when the algorithm sees that those stories are doing great, it fill promote them further, creating a snowball effect.
After all, nowadays, when there are literally ten of thousands of books to read, sometimes it doesn't matter how good a book is, but how easy it is to get readers to click on first chapter.
And with all that, you may think: Well, if so, why the hell would anyone write good stories then? Why don't just write the meta shit and get famous and rich easy?
Because a good story WILL matter, but will matter much more in the late game than the first few months.
Following the meta can get you money.
But only good stories can make BIG money.
For example: Shadow Slave makes less than 60$ first month, a little more than 200$ second month, never even receive any early bonus money (MGS). But look at where it's now.
(Yes, I literally just told people the easiest way to success on Webnovel. Use that knowledge however you will).
