Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 424 Is Paid Content Dead? A Turning Point Appears

Everyone has curiosity.

The subscription data of the first batch of works published on Qidian is a secret that countless people in the industry are curious about and want to know.

Not only is Mo Li, the editor-in-chief of a certain platform, trying to find out these data, but many other people in the industry are also inquiring about them.

For example: Where is he now?

Early in the morning, he couldn't help but call Cao Sheng.

Cao Sheng had just gotten up and was washing up in the bathroom when he heard his phone ring, but he didn't answer it and didn't know who was calling.

After he finished washing up and came out of the bathroom, he heard his phone ring again. He then went into the bedroom, picked up his phone from the bedside table, saw that the caller ID was Jin Hezai, smiled, and answered it casually.

"Hey? What do you want so early in the morning?"

Jin Hezai: "Let me ask about the subscription situation of your new book! How many people have subscribed to your new book now? This isn't a secret, is it? Hehe."

Cao Sheng turned and walked out of the bedroom, heading towards the dining table, intending to make himself a cup of tea.

He casually said, "I just woke up and haven't turned on my computer yet, so I don't know the subscription numbers right now, but I can tell you the first-hour subscription numbers for my new book."

Jin Hezai: "Huh? First-hour subscription data? How much? Does first-hour subscription data refer to the total subscriptions of all paid chapters? Or..."

The concept of 24-hour first-time subscription data has not yet emerged in the industry for paid reading, which is just beginning to be piloted.

Therefore, he didn't quite understand what Cao Sheng was saying.

Cao Sheng: "Oh, it's the subscription data for the chapter with the highest number of subscribers within 24 hours."

Jin Hezai: "Oh, oh, how many? How many subscribers are on the most popular chapter?"

Cao Sheng: "Around 5200!"

Where is he now? "How much?"

Jin Hezai's voice suddenly rose considerably, sounding quite surprised.

Cao Sheng was a little surprised, thinking: Are you surprised that I have too many subscribers? Or too few?

Cao Sheng: "More than 5200."

Jin Hezai: "Damn! You're something else! You know what? I just asked Lao Zhu, and his most popular chapter still has less than 1500 subscribers, while the one you mentioned had over 5200 subscribers in 24 hours. I guess it's around 6000 now, right? Is it?"

Cao Sheng: "I already said I just got up and haven't even turned on my computer yet, how would I know?"

……

After receiving a call from Jin Hezai.

Cao Sheng put down his phone and made himself a cup of tea.

Then he sat down at the table, waiting for the tea to cool down a bit while Cui Xinyu brought breakfast. He picked up his phone to check some missed calls and unread text messages to pass the time.

Sure enough, there were many missed calls and unread text messages.

Such as phone records from Zhu Weilian, Annie Baby, and others.

Dozens of unread text messages.

One of the messages was from Annie Baby: "Ah Hui! How are the sales of your new book on Qidian? Are there many readers spending money on it?"

Cao Sheng casually replied, "The highest number of subscribers for a single chapter in 24 hours was 5200+."

On Rong Shuqian's side, Jin Qiaoyin, the editor who had previously been in contact with him, also sent a message.

"Mr. Cao! How many subscribers does your new book have on Qidian? Could you tell me?"

Cao Sheng doesn't feel that the initial sales figures for his new book need to be kept secret; in fact, he hopes to release them publicly to give more people confidence.

So he copied his reply to Annie Baby and sent it to Jin Qiaoyin.

His phone inbox was flooded with text messages asking about subscriptions to his new book.

He then copied and sent the message to these people.

Several of the messages came from unknown numbers claiming to be fans of his book, asking about his new book subscriptions. He didn't bother to verify whether these fans were genuine or not, and simply copied and sent them the messages.

What he didn't know was that one of the self-proclaimed book fans was an editor under Mo Li, the chief editor of a certain online platform.

Upon receiving Cao Sheng's reply, the editor was delighted and immediately reported the initial subscription data for "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" to Mo Li.

Then, that morning, a data post was freshly published on a certain online author forum.

This data post compiles subscription data for the first batch of works published on Qidian.

The first-day subscription data for over 90% of the works is included in this data post.

The post is titled: "Statistics on the first 24-hour subscription data of the first batch of works released on a certain platform!"

At this time, the main business of a certain website was still a novel website, so we cannot mention the names of other novel websites directly here.

Similarly, at the starting point, one cannot directly mention the name of a certain space.

This is standard industry practice, and everyone knows it.

This data post attracted countless people's attention as soon as it appeared.

Many of them are authors, editors, or even readers from other websites.

These people were astonished by the subscription data presented in the post.

Different people were astonished by the subscription data of different works.

For example, many people were surprised by the subscription data of Lao Zhu's "Nine Sons".

"Nine Sons" was a regular at the top of Qidian's weekly recommendation list, and in many people's eyes, it was the most popular work on Qidian.

However, the number of first-time subscriptions for "Nine Sons" published in this data post was only 1129 within 24 hours.
Many people were also surprised by the first-day subscription data of Zhongyuan Yidianhui's "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts".

More than 5200?
Some people think this number is really high. No wonder it's a work by Zhongyuan Yidianhui. The number of first-time subscriptions is so much higher than that of "Nine Sons".
Some people think this figure is too low, comparing it to even the lowest possible price in the physical book market. They argue it's impossible to replicate the success of their previous success in the physical book market.

Many people were surprised by the subscription data of other books in this post.

Lucky Swordsman 513?

The author of this book, Yun Tiankong, is quite famous on Qidian because of his extremely fast update speed. He used to be a regular at number two on Qidian's weekly recommendation list. Recently, however, this book has fallen to number three because Zhongyuan Yidianhui's "The Romance of Martial Arts" topped the weekly recommendation list.

Even so, this book still ranks very high on the weekly recommendation list.

Many people believe that this book's subscription numbers should be only slightly lower than Lao Zhu's "Nine Sons".

But actually?
But more than half of it is missing.

why?
Someone commented under this data post: "Although 'Lucky Swordsman' updates very quickly, I think the writing style is a bit lacking and the plot is a bit weak, so it's normal that it has fewer subscribers."

This statement is widely accepted.

As a top-ranked work on Qidian's weekly recommendation list, "Lucky Swordsman" has been read by many people, and many people know what their opinion is on the book's writing style and plot.

The best thing about this book is its update speed.

Secondly, the plot is very solid, and the author has excellent mental fortitude.

How stable is it?
The author writes with great patience and composure, even for minor plot details. Occasionally, slightly awkward scenes are also handled with equal ease, not rushed or glossed over, and the author doesn't seem to find the awkwardness in them.

This made many people realize the gap between themselves and Yun Tiankong when reading this book.

This is not just a difference in ability, but more so a difference in mindset towards writing.

Many people experience writer's block and stop updating because they can't come up with a compelling plot, but Yun Tiankong doesn't. Whether he can come up with a compelling plot or not, he can continue writing steadily and quite quickly.

This is not a negative review!
This is indeed an advantage when it comes to writing online novels!
Because no one can keep the plot exciting and every chapter captivating indefinitely.

But if you have this mindset, you can maintain a high update speed and give your readers a satisfying reading experience.

In the online literature industry, authors who can provide readers with a large and satisfying reading experience generally do quite well. After all, money is paid by word count, and the faster and more you write, the more you earn.

Conversely, no matter how excellent your writing skills are or how exciting your plot is, if your typing speed is as slow as a tortoise, forget about making money; you'll be lucky if you don't starve to death.

The subscription numbers for "Lucky Swordsman" are not the most surprising.

What's most surprising is that most of these published works had fewer than 200 subscribers per chapter within 24 hours.

Among them are many popular works that have appeared on various Qidian charts.

These works have hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of views.

There are also tens of thousands of recommendation votes, and tens of thousands, or even tens of thousands, of people who have added it to their favorites.

However, the highest number of subscriptions for a single chapter within 24 hours was surprisingly less than 200.
This left many people feeling extremely disheartened, especially some authors within the industry.

They all hope that Qidian's paid reading service will be successful, opening up a brand new way for everyone to make money.

But the subscription data for the first batch of released works was so dismal.

Is this a problem with the quality of the work?

Nobody thinks that way.

The first batch of works to be released are all popular works selected from the best of Qidian.com, most of which are new books and a small number are older books with extremely high popularity.

Who dares to say these books are of poor quality?
But readers simply aren't willing to pay to subscribe—that's the harsh reality!
Many people commented under this data post.

"Paid reading is clearly not working! Even Zhongyuan Yidianhui's new book only has this few subscribers, what hope does it have?"

"I can't believe Guo Jingming's 'Master's Wife! Master's Wife!' has over 600 first-day subscriptions? That's higher than 'Lucky Swordsman,' is that even real?"

"Two cents a thousand words, with generally fewer than 200 subscribers, how can you make money? It's not even enough to cover the author's internet fees, is it?"

"With such a dismal number of subscribers and such a low price per chapter, the website still wants to take half of the royalties? What kind of nonsense is this?!"

"Piracy is everywhere, who would pay to read books online? I told you paid reading wouldn't work, right?"

"Zhongyuan Yidianhui is quite impressive. With pirated resources readily available through a simple search, his new book still has over five thousand subscribers. However, even if he's incredibly talented, this is his limit. Should we bet on when Qidian will end paid reading?"

……

William Zhu sat in front of his computer, looking at the comments in the post, and smiled slightly. He muttered to himself, "If all books had subscriber numbers like 'The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts,' or thousands like 'The Nine Sons'... then paid reading might have some hope. Unfortunately, there's a peak but no plateau! The other books have too few subscribers..."

……

The boss of a certain company held another company-wide meeting after work that afternoon.

He was all smiles at the meeting, appearing to be in a good mood.

In his opening remarks, he said: "By taking history as a mirror, we can understand the rise and fall of dynasties; by taking people as a mirror, we can understand our gains and losses; by taking bronze as a mirror, we can straighten our clothes and appearance."

By using our competitors' websites as a mirror, I think we can avoid many pitfalls.

For example, everyone probably knows the result of this paid reading trial on a certain website. The subscription numbers were dismal! As far as I know, several books from the first batch of books released for sale have already been put on hiatus due to these dismal subscription numbers. I believe the authors were so discouraged by these numbers that they had a mental breakdown and couldn't continue writing. I'd even bet that these books with fewer than 200 subscribers, even though they are popular works on that website, probably won't last long before these authors choose to stop updating or end their works..."

……

The fierce competition for paid reading on Qidian has deterred other websites from following suit.

They all regarded Qidian's paid reading as a failure case and a pitfall to avoid.

It's worth mentioning that most readers are unaware that Qidian's paid reading service appears to have failed.

reason?

Because most readers in this era have only recently learned how to use the internet.

It's already quite remarkable that they can learn to use email, QQ, play one or two single-player games, and find books on one or two novel websites.

Most of them were unaware of the author forum on a certain platform.

Therefore, I don't know about the subscription data posts there.

While Qidian also has a forum, it is clear that posts that damage the website's image will not be allowed to appear on Qidian's forum.

Occasionally, people would discuss the dismal subscription numbers of the newly released works, but these posts would be deleted by the moderators shortly after they appeared.

Many people don't even know to search for pirated resources.

Their limited internet skills have unknowingly trapped them in an information cocoon.

In their view, Qidian ignored everyone's voices and insisted on implementing paid reading. Although everyone was unhappy, they could not see the books they wanted to read if they did not subscribe.

So, after enduring it for a few days, some people couldn't resist and recharged their accounts to subscribe to the works they had been following.

There are quite a few people like that.

So, in the following days, the authors of the first batch of works that were released and updated daily quickly found that their number of subscribers was growing steadily.

Although the growth rate is not fast, its advantage lies in its continuous growth.

While I was having a meal, the number of subscribers increased a little.

It went up a little while I was taking a nap.

Even after a few days of inactivity, it still rose slightly.

Anyway, it keeps going up, it doesn't go down at all.

Moreover, Qidian quickly offered them some reassurance—their authors received recommendation messages for the following week in their back-end systems.

Qidian has allocated a prominent recommendation slot for each of the first batch of books released to the platform for the following week, all of which are featured on the website's homepage.

This is very encouraging, making the author, who originally intended to abandon the project, reluctant to do so at this time.

What surprised everyone the most was that five days after the first batch of works were released, many people woke up and logged into Qidian to find that Qidian had added two more lists - the Bestseller List and the New Book Monthly Ticket List.

Both lists are prominently displayed on the Qidian homepage.

The top spot on both lists belongs to "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" by Zhongyuan Yidianhui.

Someone casually clicked on the page of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" and was surprised to find that there was a donation button at the bottom of the table of contents.

Those who saw the button paused for a moment, and out of curiosity, they subconsciously clicked on the page of their own work, only to find that a donation button had also appeared below the introduction of their work.

Now that my work is available for donations?

Does anyone actually give a tip?
Some people immediately went back to the pages of "The Romance of Chinese Martial Arts" to see if anyone had tipped the book. If no one tipped the works of Zhongyuan Yidianhui, then this function is just a useless feature.

(End of this chapter)