Discussion Qidian/Webnovel SS pricing comparison

I know what you are thinking, another thread complaining about Qidian/webnovel.com. I'm not going to go into their less than stellar approach to gaining translations though. I'm going to talk about the price of buying Spirit stones and unlocking chapters. I doubt anybody doesn't think it overpriced, but I similarly doubt many know how expensive it really is.

1 spirit stone (ss) costs ~2 cents, and chapters cost 1 ss per ~200 words. That puts it at 1¢ for 100 words.

Comparatively, for an amazon ebook of the entire harry potter series, it costs 56.64$. The complete harry potter series has a total of 1,084,170 words in it. This puts the cost at 1¢ for ~191 words... if you bought it with ss it'd cost ~108.42$. The lord of the rings series comes out at 1¢ for ~283 words.

Spoiler: More series

Wheel of Time: 1¢ for 367 words
Game of Thrones: 1¢ for 461 words
Mistborn: 1¢ for 299 words

Now, besides the the cost of the books on qidian/webnovel being at least around twice as much as these examples of series, there is another problem. The price being the same would still be overpriced. The books on the site are not books that have been through the standard process of being professionally edited and published. That means they should be cheaper than novels like the ones l mentioned. Plus, one of the major things editors do is cut out unnecessary content, which means you get more for the amount of words you read.

Personally I think the cost of spirit stones is 4-5x too expensive. While i am not writing this to attack Qidian/webnovel.com, I felt this needed to be put out there.

 

They did have vip for about 2 months then gone
At about us$30

 

IKR? QI should pay me to read their stuff. And no, I'm not being sarcastic.

 

Their pricing for their Chinese centered website is really good, so it is sad that the Webnovel.com version is so much higher, it definitely makes me pick and choose what novels I do and don't read. I still buy SS and read there as personally I'm not a fan of using pirate websites for the content that others work to create.

 

Not to mention they don't let you own the work since they don't actually print the damn thing.

Its win win win for them and screw you. I have always been baffled by people who bought any stones in the first place.

 

Add another poll option of not reading their novels on their site. I do that and I have no need of worrying about pricing.

 

Thanks for the analysis and actually bothering to do the math.

I the cost is high for webnovels in comparison to ebooks, but I understand why it can be sold that way as well. Webnovels are sold as chapters, many of which end in cliffhangers, so they are easy to sell in small amounts quickly. They are a microtransaction, where ebooks are a purchase.

Knowing this though I may read there, but I won't buy.

 

personally i do the monthly subscription on qidian, I am currently reading 20+ stories that are updated daily and am catching up on other stories that have been completed or have a shit ton of chapters. Because of the nature of my job/lifestyle i avg around 1000 mins of reading a week so it actually turns out cheaper that I pay about $25 a month for unlimited reading than me buying SS per chapter. I dont think its that sustainable but once im done with most if these books or if I no longer read so many at once I'd probably end the sub

 

I also make an effort to donate to my favorite original story authors and translators, like i said my lifestyle allows me to do this because I can justify $25 for unlimited reading for translations, original novels and comics since I spend hundreds on alcohol a month easy

 

Not saying I support pirating but QI because basically has their stuff behind a spirit stone wall, there are people who use pirate sites and just read the rest where the source translation is like WW or Volare.

 

Promotion..

 

I read until the free chapters end, then I move on. None of the novels have been compelling enough to hook me for money yet.

 

I Just properly manage my accounts, it does have atleast 2 or 3 to its reading list, and those daily and reading time ss is enough to support you for the SS wall... Its quite annoying at first

 

To be a bit fairer, the site does give you chances to earn around 19+ SS per day, which will supplement catching up to some newly updated chapters of a book you've caught up on

 

I have read a couple of stories on that site that started out decently, but then they go "premium" around 100 or so chapters in and you look and see the RAWs are sitting at 1000+ chapters and I fail to see the value. First of all, the quality of the stories they are selling are far below professional. Secondly they are often poorly translated and edited.

It's a bit like going to a fancy restaurant, opening the menu and finding KFC items being renamed and resold as fine dining for 5 times the price.

 

I could double like this.

 

I feel like I've read about two of this exact kind of post...

 

While their paid offerings are overpriced, they give you what 18 - 30 stones free per day? More if you use their mobile app.

So you can read 1-3 series with daily releases for free.

Effectively, the higher cost of people willing to pay covers the cost of all us leaches.

 

I’m just gonna say that you can make multiple accounts

 

My problem with Quidon is not just the pricing. It’s the permancay. I bought 25,000 stones as an experiment when they first put one of my favorite stolen novel behind a paywall. I “bought” about a hundred chapters of locked chapters with the stone given freely. The problem is those chapters I bought after about 6 months are locked again. So your paying 5 times the price for something shitty and ultimately only rented. If your only allow to rent it then it’s just a library. Libraries are supposed to be free.

There just scammers I’d rather send my money directly to the author.