Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 421 of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" is now available.

Cao Sheng replied: "ok"

Subsequently, the saved chapters were retrieved and published through the newly opened VIP sub-volume in the author's backend.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 5, Chapter 8, Chapter 10.

On the first day of its release, he released ten chapters of his drafts in one go, each with a little over three thousand words, totaling more than thirty thousand words.

Original timeline: This is a basic operation when online novels are listed in the era of paid reading.

Almost every book releases several chapters on the day of its release to encourage readers to subscribe. Some perverts even release hundreds of chapters on the day of release.

Cao Sheng can't manage a hundred chapters in a row, but he can manage ten.

After sending out ten chapters, he entered the data center password in the author's backend to access the data center and check the subscription status of all VIP chapters.

The main purpose is to check whether the ten chapters that were just released were released as paid chapters.

If they are indeed released as paid chapters, then the subscription data for these ten chapters will appear in the data center.

If it is still released as a free chapter, it means that Qidian, which just started trying paid reading, has encountered a bug in this area, and he should report it to Qidian as soon as possible.

Soon, he saw the subscription data for ten VIP chapters displayed in the data center.

This shows that the recent release went as planned.

The first VIP chapter, which was released initially, already showed 722 subscribers.

The second VIP chapter, released three minutes later, has 648 subscribers.
The third VIP chapter, released four minutes later, had 559 subscribers.
Yes, publishing VIP chapters takes quite a while; it took him about three or four minutes to publish one chapter on average.

reason?

Firstly, to publish each chapter of the saved draft, you need to copy a chapter from the saved draft, paste it into the publishing box in the author's backend, and also cut out the chapter title separately and paste it into the chapter title box.

It doesn't seem to be complicated to operate.

However, every time he copies a draft from the archive, he needs to double-check that he hasn't copied it to another chapter. In addition, when publishing a VIP chapter, due to the current technical limitations of the internet, it requires two steps: first, he needs to save it to the archive in the author's backend, and then he can publish it as a VIP chapter.

Each of these two steps takes ten seconds or even longer, which is due to current internet speed limitations, just like how any webpage in this era requires ten seconds or even longer to load.

Therefore, it actually took Cao Sheng more than half an hour to release the 10 VIP chapters.

This also resulted in him having to wait three or four minutes between each chapter he published.

This also resulted in significant differences in the number of subscribers between each chapter.

The first VIP chapter already has over 700 subscribers, while the tenth VIP chapter only has 82 subscribers.

Cao Sheng was not surprised by this.

I refresh the webpage every now and then to check the latest subscription data.

When the page was refreshed for the first time, the number of subscribers for the first VIP chapter rose to 795.

When the page was refreshed for the second time, the number of subscribers for this chapter had increased to 851.
About two or three minutes later, the number of subscribers for the first VIP chapter exceeded 1000, reaching 1074.
This rate of data growth reassured him somewhat.

Because if this trend continues, the highest number of subscribers for a single chapter within 24 hours will definitely be several thousand, even though his book currently has more than 108,000 favorites.

But he never expected that Qidian, which had just started offering paid reading, would have a subscription-to-receiver ratio of 10 to 1.

In other words, he never expected the book to have more than 10,000 initial subscriptions.

He would be very satisfied if the number of first-time orders within 24 hours reached four or five thousand.

Based on the current upward trend, the first-time order data in 24 hours should be over 4,000.

He felt reassured.

In fact, as a veteran who has published many books, he can roughly estimate the final subscription data after a new book is published.

For example, if he sees the highest subscription number for a single chapter half an hour after it's been released, he can roughly estimate the number of subscribers in 24 hours based on that data.

If the timeframe is extended to the number of subscribers within one hour of the product launch, he can more accurately estimate the number of subscribers within 24 hours.

This is based on experience!

Some people might think that if the highest number of subscribers for a single chapter breaks 1000 in just over half an hour after it goes live, then at this rate, the highest number of subscribers for a single chapter in 24 hours could definitely break 10,000, or even reach 20,000. But that would be naive.

According to Cao Sheng's experience, the fastest growth in subscriptions occurs within half an hour of a book being listed.

Many book fans are waiting for this book to be released and want to subscribe and support it as soon as possible.

The most enthusiastic fans usually subscribe within an hour of the book being released.

After an hour, the growth rate of subscription data will drop significantly.

For works like "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" that are released at midnight, once it gets past 1 a.m., most readers are already asleep, so the growth rate of subscribers will be extremely slow from 12 a.m. to dawn.

The number of subscribers from 12 a.m. to noon the next day is usually only about the same as the number of subscribers in the first hour after the app is released.

From noon to midnight the following day, the total number of subscribers was roughly equivalent to the number in the first hour after the app was released. However, there was another period of rapid growth in subscribers from evening to around 8 pm.

Therefore, the highest number of subscribers for a single chapter in 24 hours is usually calculated by multiplying the number of subscribers in the first hour after a book is released by 3.

Of course, this is Cao Sheng's experience before his rebirth, and it may not be relevant to his current starting point.

But his estimate was roughly correct.

He estimated that the number of subscribers to "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" within one hour of its release should be around 1300. Multiplying that by 3, the number of subscribers within 24 hours should be around 4000.

With 108,000 collectors, only 4000 initial subscriptions were generated. If this data were from the two years before his rebirth, such a subscription-to-collection ratio would probably make countless peers laugh.

Because back then, a new book with 30,000 to 40,000 favorites could probably get around 4000 initial subscriptions.

With 108,000 favorites, there were only 4000 initial subscriptions?

This subscription ratio is really terrible!
For historical works with particularly high subscription rates, even those with tens of thousands of collectors, there's a chance of getting 4000 initial subscriptions.

But as I said before, times have changed. The first batch of works to be released were destined to have the worst subscription-to-receive ratio because this was a major innovation that changed readers' habits. Every subscription meant that a reader who had never subscribed to any work before was paying money for their first recharge and first subscription.

The first time is always extremely difficult.

Just like young women who have never had sex with a man, it's easy to imagine how difficult it is to get them to give up their first time.

At this moment, Cao Sheng suddenly noticed that his QQ was beeping incessantly, as if it had been infected with a virus. He clicked the mouse seven or eight times in a row, but his QQ avatar was still flashing and the beeping continued.

Actually, his QQ notification sound had been ringing non-stop for a while.

He was focused on releasing VIP chapters one by one, and after that, he paid close attention to the subscription data, so he didn't notice QQ.

He manipulated the mouse, opening one dialog box after another.

There were messages from Baojianfeng, as well as messages from other authors, editors, and even old classmates and readers.

Just as he was about to reply, Huang Qingya, who had just finished showering and was carrying a fragrant scent, walked up to him and nudged his leg with hers. "Move back a bit, let me sit here," she said.

She was wearing another pink bathrobe at this moment. Cao Sheng smiled, pushed off the ground with his legs, and the wheels under the executive chair rolled backward, increasing the distance between the chair and the computer.

Huang Qingya smiled and sat on his lap, wiping the water from her hair with a towel as she casually asked, "Was it successfully listed? How did you list it? How many chapters have been sold so far?"

How many chapters have been sold?
Cao Sheng couldn't help but laugh at this layman's question.

With one arm around her waist and the other controlling the mouse, he navigated the computer screen back to the author's data center. "Here! See for yourself!"

The data in the author's backend data center was something Huang Qingya had never seen before.

With wide eyes, I curiously leaned closer to the computer screen.

She is nearsighted and usually wears glasses. Since she had just finished showering and hadn't put her glasses back on yet, she had to get very close to see the things in the data center clearly.

Looking at this data, she felt a sense of novelty, as if she were reading the latest trend secrets in online literature.

Before today, paid reading had never existed in the industry.

The subscription data for "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" on Cao Sheng's computer is a secret that countless people want to see but will never have the chance to see.

The latest subscription data that Cao Sheng had just refreshed was: 1487 VIP subscribers for Chapter 1. At this time, the time displayed in the lower right corner of the computer screen was just past 1 a.m., at 1:03 a.m.

The number of subscribers within an hour of its release was 187 higher than Cao Sheng had estimated.

"Over 1,400 subscribers? The latest chapter only has 776 subscribers? Isn't that too few?"

She looked at it carefully again and again, then turned to Cao Sheng, frowning as she asked him.

In her memory, Cao Sheng's physical books often sold over a million copies, while his new book, "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts," only has a little over a thousand subscribers on Qidian.

Although this data was only recently released, it was still far below her expectations.

She knew that the book currently had 108,000 collectors.

Nearly 11 people have added this book to their favorites, but only about a thousand have subscribed so far. In her opinion, this data is too tragic.

Cao Sheng smiled and shook his head, "It's not too little; this number is already more than I expected."

"Huh? This is more than you expected? How much money do you make online with this book in a month? I estimate it's hard to make even 10,000 yuan a month, right?"

Huang Qingya was very surprised.

Earning 10,000 yuan a month in royalties is very difficult for her.

But she knew that Cao Sheng earned at least several hundred thousand yuan a month in royalties, and at least several million yuan a year.

In comparison, if online subscriptions don't earn more than 10,000 yuan a month, she felt that for Cao Sheng, it was better than nothing.

It's simply not worth the effort he spends online.

"I probably won't earn much in the first month, but it will definitely be more than 10,000, and it will increase more and more in the future."

Cao Sheng said calmly.

Huang Qingya asked, puzzled, "Really? There will be more and more in the future?"

Cao Sheng: "As long as the plot doesn't fall apart and the quality doesn't drop significantly, the number of subscribers will keep increasing, and the royalties will naturally keep increasing as well."

Huang Qingya was skeptical. "Really? Then how much do you estimate the monthly royalties for this book will be in six months?"

Cao Sheng thought for a moment and smiled, "Probably a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand? It should be."

He didn't dare to overestimate it.

The current subscription price is 2 cents per thousand words.

This price is much cheaper than before his rebirth.

Therefore, the total amount of royalties earned with the same number of subscribers will be significantly less.

But Huang Qingya was seriously surprised by the number he estimated.

"Really? No way! Earning this much every month after six months? How is that possible?"

Cao Sheng smiled, neither arguing with her nor interested in explaining further, simply saying, "You'll see when the time comes."

In fact, he felt that his estimate was very conservative.

Because he knew how serious the winner-takes-all phenomenon was in this industry.

The extent to which the winners are treated is beyond the imagination of most people.

For example, as long as his book remains the most subscribed work on Qidian, it will inevitably be heavily recommended by Qidian, with as much effort as possible.

In the foreseeable future, he believes his book, "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts," will consistently rank high on every recommended spot on Qidian, where promotion is most effective.

It will also become one of the most watched books in the industry.

Countless readers will come to try out this book, not only readers on Qidian, but also readers from all external websites; more than 80% of them will come to try it out.

This is the winner-takes-all principle!

A winner-takes-all work will appeal not only to all readers who enjoy reading online novels, but also to outsiders who don't usually read online novels but occasionally want to try their hand at them.

It will even appeal to all writers; almost all writers will read his book with a learning attitude, and many of them will subscribe to the paid chapters.

This is something that ordinary online novels cannot achieve.

However, the most popular works in the industry will attract every writer to read them.

With all these advantages, even if the book's initial subscriptions are only 4000, Cao Sheng believes that Qidian will push its average subscriptions to over 40000.

How much would a work with an average subscription of over 40000 receive in royalties each month?
He couldn't estimate it in a short time.

However, he knew that some works in the original timeline with only a few thousand average subscriptions could earn seventy to eighty thousand yuan in royalties every month because of a large number of updates, and occasionally the monthly income could even exceed one hundred thousand yuan.

Therefore, his estimate that the book would generate a monthly income of over 100,000 yuan in six months is a very conservative estimate.

Currently, probably no one at Qidian headquarters can predict the approximate revenue of his book six months from now.

No one understands online novel subscription revenue better than me.

This is Cao Sheng's state of mind at this moment.

At this moment, seeing that Huang Qingya was no longer watching his author backend subscription data, he manipulated the mouse and opened the message dialog box sent by Baojianfeng.

"Mr. Cao, it seems our paid reading service has failed. The subscription numbers for the first batch of dozens of books are dismal!"

"Mr. Cao! Are you still there?"

"Mr. Cao! Are you asleep?"

(End of this chapter)