552 Numerator and Denominator (1/2)

Chapter 552: Numerator and Denominator

Translator: Nyoi-Bo StudioEditor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The Wang Haige Forum had a literature section, which was divided into two subsections: discussions on paper books and online publications. Zhang Zian didn't usually visit these two sections. But today he was lying in the reclining chair, browsing the forum on his phone.

As he clicked the online publication discussion area, a post attracted his attention.

[Seven Kill]: I'm a new author. Questions for you: how many more ”favorites” should I gain per chapter to be considered acceptable?

There were all kinds of answers below the post. Some of them were joking, some were serious.

[Old City]: It depends on the website. I'm writing a fantasy on Qidian. I got 20 more favorites on the first day the book was cleared for publication, then 11 on the second day, and 20 more favorites each day after Day 3. So far I wrote 28,000 words, and had 140 favorites.

[Academy]: Impressive! Let us know the book name!

[Fan Wujiu]: I think you are here to show off.

[Tian Haoyu]: You get favorites with so few words? Is this a scam? Why did I only get 40 favorites after writing 50,000 words?

Zhang Zian was more confused after reading this. Was this the difference between the big names and small names? But some are not doing so well. Pi just wrote 2000 words, so it should get at least 40 favorites by 50,000 words, shouldn't it? At least, it would not be the worst.

Some statistic nerds talked about the fundamentals below the post.

[Akmond]: Qidian is the biggest website of the business, and it's a hard for newbies to get ahead. Today is my day off, and I have nothing else to do. So let me spend time to tell you how hard it is to be a writer at Qidian. I just checked the Qidian Library. Only counting new books under 300,000 words, there are 18,000 of them that were updated in 3 days! Only 2000 of them had a signed contract. The odds of getting a contract is 1/9.

[Seven Kill]: This hard? This makes my newbie heart as cold as ice...

[Akmond]: Hard? No, this is only the beginning. After signing a contract, Qidian starts promoting your book to let more people read it. But is signing a contract enough? Not at all. After that, your book will be on the promotion list along with other new books. There are about 5-6 rounds of promotion for new books, and in each round, only 4 books out of 10 will qualify for the next promotion. Only 0.4% of all books can defeat the others and make it to the Power Ranking list. 2000 times 0.004 equals 8, which means, among the 18,000 books, only 8 of them can rise above all and be released on the shelf. While the remaining 99.99% of books are left in the ocean of books without readers.