I guess they're counting on the fact that those tippers would just go to the premium comics instead of the non-premium ones.
Kind of sad really to see such discrimination. Just because one is new, just because the Staff has not seen the work, they get buried among hundreds of novel, no matter how good they are.
Well in my case my work is buried anyway so it's the same. I just hope they would have a different algorithm to make non-premium novels seen more. After all, all coins are still theirs, end they take cuts from transaction so I believe that encouraging tippers would be better than deterring them.
If I were them, I would have made the requirements for the tipping/add revenue for novels to be in the number of total words of all series for an account and for the comics number of pages. After all, all this user created content is ranking them up on the internet and is bringing income one way or another. Even a poorly written story has an influence, someone will like it, subscribe and be exposed to an ad.
Besides, with the aggressive way they're marketing the promo novels, the normal reader would likely not even bother to use the Discover tab, which also has plenty of premium novels.
@GoneForever Regarding the subscribers, they did not mention if it's series subscribers or not. If it's not, one might stand a chance. But then again, to get 2000 subscribers... it's basically saying: If you're that good, we'll acknowledge you.
So in other words, it's all about your marketing skills?
In this case, I don't see the point. If you already have 2000 subs, that means you are doing something right and you don't need to submit to join the Premium program. Especially since such stories are deemed good quality so they need very little editing or advice, and yet you have to share 50-50 with them.
I would rather they would do something like helping unknown stories see the light more. Go in there and search for good stories, great plots, nice writing. There are surely some you've missed out on from the wave of new stories.
Edit: They also only have incubator programs for the comics, why not make one for the novels as well?