Are the horror stories of Webnovel Contracts True?

[mrbthenovelist]

Hey ya'll,
New on Tapas, I'm an infant novelist

I had recently got this notice from Webnovel and so started to do my own research...

Congrats! Novel Recommended on Fresh Stories
Your hard work has paid off! Your book will be recommended on on <2023.02.07>.
Please keep writing, your book has the opportunity to get contracted!

What I saw was pretty horrifying, full IP control and even future works cant be similar?! Tbh I actually stumbled onto Tapas whilst being shocked at what I was seeing about Webnovel's contract. Does anyone have any experience on this matter? Initially I thought I'd just publish there too coz I'm fully expecting to not do well on my first novel but now ....I'm now reluctant to even post my novel chapters on there.
I've barely gotten my feet wet in this novel-writing world yet so I'm in need of advice, is the exposure worth it if I decide not to sign the contract? or is plagiarism and all that a real thing?

Read Time After Death : Chronicles of A Tyrant Prince | Tapas Web Novels

Check it out Posting 1-2/ day with a bank of quite a few chapters~

Much Love and Appreciation
MrB the Novelist

[Freemints30]

Stay away webnovel is on a writers beware list now (Along with many other apps after getting investigated). Here's the article for more info

Bad Contract Alert: Webnovel - Writer Beware

Alot of Web novels are under an NDA hence they cant say anything bad about it and are just encourage to promote without and downplay the negatives. Its horrible. Even if you are not under contract you cant delete your novel from the platform once you publish on there. hence if you ever decided to go as an exclusive when you publish traditionally or via KU, you are screwed. Unless you manually delete all chapters from your series.

I'll say it.. unless you live in a country where the standard wages adn job quality are so low in comparism, it aint worth it, even for exposure. You cant eat exposoure

[mrbthenovelist]

if you ever decided to go as an exclusive when you publish tradtionally or via KU, you are screwed.

I've only got 5/14 published there so far and say my novel totals a few hundred chapters in future... will this be problem?

Thanks loads for the info btw

[Freemints30]

Well once again, once its there you cant delete the novel once you post it on that platform.. and Webnovel has a very bad piracy bot problem.. and view bot problem (making a series look like its getting views when in actuality it isn't).. and bot problem in general. And really trad pub is very stingy when it comes to works online that you cant take down. And KU has bots that dont really like samples anywhere if you plan for that in your future. So best you can do delete your chapters and hope future publishers understand if you really want the book to be published.

But if this is supposed to be just a 100% free series, personally I just find that whole plateform too shady to work with.

[Katzalcoatl]

Sadly the stories are true.

Just check their contract page. It says you have to write daily 1500 words and you will get payed around $200USD and max $400 USD per month you also resign to all royalties for any merchandise.

That's roughly 45,000 words a month for 400 USD if you are lucky. Because there is no gurantee you will get payed that. So basically $200 a month for 45,000 words. In a year that would mean 547,500 words for $2,400-$4,800 USD.

[cherrystark]

Imo - if you want to make money publishing your writing online, you should go the independent route. Currently, I'm writing on Kindle Vella. It's not a perfect platform and the money isn't guaranteed (but what platform is), but I get paid for every reader. They'll pay me that even if I only make $0.50 USD in royalties. Their only stipulation in our agreements is that your work has to be behind a payment wall. I have full rights to my work and can release it as an ebook if I wish. I am not a fan of Fictionate because of some personal issues with the CEO, but even with that site, I own the rights, and if a reader pays the $4.99 fee for the book, you get $4.99 for the book.

The problem I've seen with other online publishing platforms is that they hide predatory clauses behind flashy promises. Web fiction is the future of publishing, so many sites are popping up trying to grab stories. Wattpad, for example, is creating pay-to-read serial fiction options but there is nothing online about the TOS of their programs. It's all "invite only". That's a big red flag to me. Other sites like Inkitt promise to help you publish, but they only want spicy romance and will take ownership of all your IP. Writers get no money out of the deal.

If someone wants to support your work, they'll pay for it. They won't offer you something that seems a little too good to be true, which 99,9% of the DMs people get with flashy offers are too good to be true. Play it safe and shop around before committing to a publishing set up.

[mrbthenovelist]

Thanks for the advice ! I've decided to stay off Webnovel for now. For lack of a better description, signing with them seems to sound a whole lot like selling my soul to the devil.. and still not getting paid well for it

[darthmongoose]

To put you at ease about Tapas... (though I should preface this by saying that building an audience on Tapas with a novel is pretty hard and a lot harder than with comics), I'm on a Tapas contract, and they've been pretty good to work with. Their contracts have been clear, they've been easy to talk to, and they don't take any ownership of my IP or bar me from posting elsewhere etc.

So if you build an audience on Tapas, you at least don't need to worry about something like with Webnovel happening. If you're offered a contract here, it'll just be something like "if you get X views per month, you'll get some extra money" or "People can pay to get your episodes a week early and all you have to do is stay a week ahead on updates and update weekly" or similar.

[Katzalcoatl]

I agree with @darthmongoose novels don't get much love on tapas, but their ethics are great. Would love to get a contract someday to make a comic out of my novel but I got to self promote if I ever want that.

[mrbthenovelist]

Thanks for sharing, yea... I've noticed how much harder it is to get views here, not to mention likes and comments. Well, I've set aside a full year to grind as a novelist and I'll see how it goes... It is after all my first shot at novel writing so I expect the first 100-200 chapters to be intro-to-writing lessons anyways. The Webnovel contract is a little comforting this early on but Id rather give Tapas, RR, Wattpad a good shot first.

[system]

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