Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 407 Data Soars
In this day and age, not many people go online in the morning.

However, Qidian (a Chinese online learning platform) couldn't resist advertising Cao Sheng's "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" on its homepage announcement page today.

So, when Lao Zhu went online around 10 a.m. and saw "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" on the Qidian announcement board, he was surprised to find that the new book had already received over 10,000 clicks and nearly 2,000 recommendation votes.

"Holy crap! That's incredible?"

He blurted out a curse word.

He has been publishing works on Qidian for quite some time and is quite familiar with the current state of Qidian.

In his memory, once a new author uploads a book, if the word count doesn't exceed 10,000, the total number of clicks is usually only around 100, and won't exceed 500.

The number of recommendation votes is generally less than one-tenth of the number of clicks.

For example, a work with 10000 total clicks will generally not receive more than 1000 recommendation votes.
Cao Sheng's new book has only published two chapters, totaling about six thousand words.

The total number of clicks has exceeded 10,000.

The number of recommendation votes was nearly two thousand.

He had never seen such impressive data before at Qidian.

His own novel, "Nine Sons," is already among the top-tier novels on Qidian.com, but he remembers that when "Nine Sons" was first released, the total number of clicks on the first day did not even exceed one thousand.

Cao Sheng's new book was just released on Qidian today, and at just over 10 a.m., it has already received more than 10,000 clicks.

If this continues until midnight, how high will the total number of clicks be?
Has Qidian reached this level of readership?
With mixed feelings, he scrolled down to the book review section.

It has been noted that there are already more than 500 book reviews.

At a glance, I saw some book reviews like these:
"What's going on? This book is being published on two websites at the same time? Is Zhongyuan Yidianhui casting such a wide net?"

"I just finished reading the beginning of this book on Rongshu, and I didn't expect to see it again on Qidian. I almost thought that my action of typing the Qidian website address was an illusion."

"Qidian is amazing! This time they actually managed to get Zhongyuan Yidianhui's new book."

"Zhongyuan Yidian Hui, truly amazing! The first two chapters have already piqued my interest to keep reading. When will the third chapter be released? How many chapters will you update each day?"

"It's still not long enough. I'll wait until it's longer before reading it. I'll leave a comment for now!"

"Damn it! I got hooked too early. It's only 6,000 words and I'm already hooked. How am I going to keep up with the updates? I think I'm going to die."

"Why isn't this book on the new book chart? This doesn't make sense, does it? A new book by Zhongyuan Yidianhui can't even make it onto Qidian's new book chart? This is ridiculous!"

……

In front of the computer.

When Lao Zhu saw the post above, he couldn't help but laugh.

Because he knew why Zhongyuan Yidianhui's new book couldn't make it onto Qidian's new book chart.

This is because one of the rules for listing on Qidian's new book chart is that the word count must be over 5 but not more than 20, and the book must have been updated within three days.

While the book "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" currently boasts impressive statistics, its total word count of only around six thousand words falls short of the requirements for making the list, thus preventing it from appearing on Qidian's new book chart.

He browsed the book review section of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" for a while, and out of curiosity, he went to read the main text of the book. Although only two chapters of the main text had been published, it was enough for him to see some things.

After reading the two chapters, he looked somewhat emotional.

These two chapters showed him that Zhongyuan Yidianhui had produced another highly creative new book.

Although the story is set in modern society, the traditional Chinese martial arts mentioned in the second chapter gave him a refreshing feeling, and he estimated that such a subject should attract many readers.

However, he is not optimistic about the book's prospects.

According to his observation, the most popular genres at present are fantasy and xianxia. Among them, the xianxia genre has been gaining popularity in the past two years due to works such as "I Want to Become an Immortal", "Tomb of the Gods", and "The Legend of the Primordial Era" written by Zhongyuan Yidianhui. It is showing signs of becoming the most popular genre.

Given this general trend, Zhongyuan Yidianhui's new book has surprisingly chosen an urban theme, and within that theme, it explores a previously unexplored subgenre—Chinese martial arts. How high can this book reach?

Will readers who enjoy fantasy and xianxia genres buy into this?

He subconsciously returned to the Qidian homepage and looked at Qidian's click ranking and recommendation ranking, which are the two most valuable lists on Qidian's homepage.

He glanced at the twenty or thirty books displayed on the homepage of the two lists and didn't see a single book in the urban fiction category.

This is the current trend indicator for Qidian.

To see what the most popular themes are right now on Qidian, just look at these two lists.

Therefore, he did not doubt the quality of Zhongyuan Yidianhui's new book, but estimated that its popularity would probably reach a new low for Zhongyuan Yidianhui in the past two years.

……

Lao Zhu's "Nine Sons" is currently ranked number one on Qidian's recommendation list.

The second-ranked work is Yun Tiankong's "Lucky Swordsman".

Yun Tiankong has not been writing online novels for long. "Lucky Magic Swordsman" is his first work, but it has already made him famous on Qidian.

Although he is not currently ranked second in the hearts of readers, his work has been at number two on the Qidian recommendation list for almost a week.

His writing skills are not top-notch.

It's only considered above average.

But his grasp of the key moments and his control of the rhythm have already shown his superior abilities.

Most importantly, his typing speed is already the fastest at his current level.

Although the Third Young Master's writing speed is fast, and he was dubbed the "Schumacher of the online novel circle" by Qidian, his update volume is generally only a little over 10,000 words per day.

Although Xue Hong's writing speed in the original timeline was unparalleled, creating an astonishing record of updating 90,000 words a day, Xue Hong's current work, consisting of two "rogue" themed books, is simply not suitable for publication and has not earned him any royalties. Therefore, he is currently severely lacking in motivation to update rapidly, and the update speed of his ongoing series, "The Rogue's Rise Again," is not impressive.

But what about Yun Tiankong?
Although "Lucky Swordsman" was his first book, it was successfully published in traditional Chinese characters in Taiwan.

The subject matter of this book is exactly what the publisher likes.

His book, with its first few tens of thousands of words written quite well, successfully passed the publisher's review.

Therefore, he can earn royalties for every word he writes, which motivates him to write more frequently.

Therefore, writing 10,000 words a day was a way for him to take a break.

He wrote at the end of the chapter: "I'm not feeling well today, so I can only add this many chapters for everyone." He updated 15,000 words a day.

He updates 20,000 words a day. At the end of the chapter, he said: "I'm in a good state today. If you are satisfied with the reading, could you please give me two recommendation votes?"

Readers or authors who did not experience this era can hardly imagine how terrifying Yun Tiankong was during this period. When many authors could not even update 3,000 words a day, he would update 15,000 or 20,000 words at a time.

During this period, readers generally did not have much money to read books online. Poverty limited the time people could spend reading online each day, and many could only squeeze out a little money from their living expenses to go to internet cafes for two or three hours a week.

Therefore, with Yun Tiankong updating so frequently, his book review section often sees posts like: "Old Yun, you're updating too fast! I can't keep up with your pace! Can you slow down a bit?"

For other authors, readers need to urge them to update their work.

However, readers often ask Yun Tiankong to slow down his writing when he writes his works.

Of course, many readers were thrilled. Because of the abundant and consistent updates, Yun Tiankong's fanbase grew rapidly.

The rapid increase in his fan base and the large monthly income from his writing made Yun Tiankong more and more confident. Gradually, he was no longer afraid of any author on Qidian.

I feel that even if some authors have better writing skills than him, or even if their works are better overall, none of them can beat him, because no one can type faster than him.

He believed that with his rapid updates, even if a bit of gray from the Central Plains came to Qidian, it wouldn't be enough for him to defeat.

This afternoon, after spending the whole morning writing, he uploaded two chapters in one go. While having lunch, he sat in front of his computer and browsed the Qidian homepage when he suddenly saw "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" in the announcement section.

He paused for a moment when he saw the book title.

I thought to myself: Has the Central Plains Ash really arrived at the starting point?

"A person's name is like a tree's shadow"—this is a phrase that online novelists of this period often used in their books.

Yun Tiankong also wrote about it.

At this moment, when he saw "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" on the Qidian bulletin board, and realized that Zhongyuan Yidianhui had really come to Qidian, his heart sank and he felt a sense of pressure.

If there's any author in the current online literature world who can put pressure on him, he thinks it's only Zhongyuan Yidianhui.

Having tasted the benefits of speed, he increasingly believed in Dongfang Bubai's famous saying: "No martial art in the world is invincible except for speed."

He was also aware that the quality of his work was not among the top in the industry.

However, he believes that his top-notch typing speed, coupled with his decent writing, allows him to rival any author in the industry in terms of popularity.

The only thing that made him uncertain about victory was the slight graying of the Central Plains.

Because the Central Plains has too much of a halo of gray.

—The progenitor of online literature.

—A pioneering figure in the cultivation genre.

—The pioneer of the prehistoric fantasy genre.

—The founding monster of the Pagoda School (Heaven and Earth Xuanhuang Exquisite Pagoda).

—The creator of sales records in the traditional Chinese market.

—The creator of sales records in the simplified Chinese market.

—The highest-paid screenwriter among Chinese screenwriters.

and many more.

A mountain of honors—it's enough to scare anyone to death.

In terms of reputation, he's the kind of person that all new authors look up to.

And Yun Tiankong happens to be a new author.

Can my hand speed... break his invincible myth? Can it?
With mixed feelings, Yun Tiankong clicked on the link to "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" and arrived at the book's page. He looked at the book's data and reviews, and then, with the intention of learning, finding fault, and verifying, he read the first two chapters of this new book.

He reads very quickly, finishing the two chapters in just a few minutes.

After reading it, he frowned and pondered.

He admitted to himself that the second chapter of the book had amazed him, but the fact that the book was categorized as an urban novel gradually made him want to compete with it.

He knew that the urban fiction genre wasn't currently the most popular on any novel website.

This category is fairly popular, but not as popular as fantasy or Xianxia.

In fact, many people believe that online literature refers only to the two categories of fantasy and xianxia.

Some people even believe that online literature refers to fantasy novels.

In this situation, he believes that even if the quality of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" is good, it will likely be far less popular than Zhongyuan Yidianhui's previous works, even if it is placed in the urban category.

Yun Tiankong was also well aware that in the physical book market, she certainly couldn't compete with Zhongyuan Yidianhui at the moment.

However, he felt that online, or rather on the Qidian website, his "Lucky Magic Swordsman" might be able to surpass the popularity of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts".

For example, the recommendation list on the homepage of Qidian.

If Zhongyuan Yidianhui wants to rise to the top, the only way is to compete with him in terms of the number of new recommendation votes each week.

As for recommendation votes, he could easily ask readers for them by updating chapters frequently.

If Zhongyuan Yidianhui doesn't update frequently, the effect of asking for votes might not be as good as that of Heyun Tiankong.

—If I can keep his book ahead of mine on the recommendation list for a month or two, I can naturally rise to fame by standing on his shoulders…

The thought flashed through his mind.

I was already feeling a little excited.

……

Cao Sheng had no idea that he had become a stepping stone in Yun Tiankong's eyes.

For several days in a row, he went about his routine of attending classes, practicing boxing, writing, and updating his blog.

Because he planned to try paid subscriptions on Qidian for "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts", he maintained a frequency of updating two chapters a day after the new book was published.

Based on his experience before his rebirth, such stable updates can maintain readers' enthusiasm for following the story every day. In this way, when the word count reaches around 20 words, the number of people following the story every day will be considerable.

At that time, the subscription data for the work won't look too bad.

Of course, the quality of the work is very important.

If the quality is poor, even the most stable updates are useless.

Fortunately, he was not worried about the quality of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts".

He didn't really pay attention to the various data of this book on Qidian. He only glanced at the number of bookmarks and the dozen or so book reviews in the book review section when updating the chapters each day.

For several days in a row, his book failed to enter any of the Qidian rankings because it had less than 5 words. Logically speaking, under such circumstances, the increase in various data of his book should have been very low.

However, because Qidian promoted the book on its homepage announcement board and thoughtfully provided a web link, the book's data showed an astonishing increase for several consecutive days.

On the first day of uploading, Cao Sheng noticed that the number of people who had added the bookmark to their favorites had already exceeded 2400 when he updated the chapter at around 10 p.m.

The total number of clicks has exceeded 4, and the number of recommendation votes has exceeded 6000.

On the second day after uploading, when Cao Sheng updated a chapter at noon, he noticed that the number of favorites had risen to more than 3900, the total number of clicks was more than 70,000, and the number of recommendation votes exceeded 10,000.

When he updated the second chapter at around 10 p.m., he noticed that the number of people who had collected the bookmarks had reached more than 5400, the total number of clicks was more than 110,000, and the number of recommendation votes was more than 13,000.

On the third day at noon, he noticed that the number of people collecting the items had increased significantly again.

(End of this chapter)