QIDIAN ORIGINAL AUTHORS: Something all of you need to know.

Hello slave contract~
Say farewell to your life~

 

Do you mean Charcoal from Strange Life of a Cat? They really pissed me off with that novel man it was the only thing truly keeping me tied to the website, and then it just stopped cushed my soul. Now QI has ZERO cute novels, it was like the only one left!

 

What makes qidian so special that they can actually do this? I mean, how hard is it to create a similar site? Why is this website still no.1??? Am I missing something?

 

Is this going to be merged with the mass Qidian thread later? I enjoyed reading through this thread, but I got to go.

 

No one force you to sign that contract. Best way to use qidian as a place where you publish free chapters while users can buy rest of your novel on patreon or on your private website.

I'd say it's a big NO for many Europeans. You really want me to visit PH or SEA? No f**** way. It's too dangerous for most people. Even Poland more safe. As for China I don't think any foreigners will be popular or even known there.

They can go to hui as Russians say.

That part I can confirm. I know many Chinese authors who's been forced to change plot and even novel name. For most but not all authors it make their novels worse.

I heard lezhin delayed payment for 3 years, lol.

That's way many Chinese authors choose different publisher platforms or even stop writing web novels and focus on real life writing.

Qidian (webnovels) still best place for shameless translators with their low quality (just like my post, but I'm ill irl and it hard to write) translation. It's like with one popular space novel, i start to feel that several chapters been a bit short for no reason and decide to check raws. Guess what I found? missed text. Translator found it a bit time consuming or even hard to translate and removed it.

 

I prefer your old profile picture

 

Chinese webnovels making way too much money compared to west novels. Like erotic genre dead in west but popular in china. And china have too much laws against erotic novels.

As for west fantasy no readers wanted to pay for it unless you publish a book or ebook. At best they say thanks to you. Even trash japanese fantasy novels been way more popular than any west fantasy. Ofc I talk only about new authors without background.

 

I'm still missing.

 

In one word, money. Shoveling millions of dollars into this kind of project gives you quite the advantage.

Contrary to popular belief, these kinds of websites are actually kind of expensive to develop. Unfortunately, it's not just serving text anymore. That's how it was done in the 1990's. We're nearly to the 2020's now and the absolute minimal requirements has risen quite a lot. The problem is two-fold...one, you need a strong community oriented website design. The second is the ability to attract content providers.

Neither problem has a cheap solution if you're going to do it right. Hence, taking on number 1 is going to need quite a bit of luck and skill.

That said, it's not all doom and gloom. Because their focus is on their translation division, it looks like their Western Original Novel arm is still very weak. That's a rather large opening if I ever saw one.

 

This couldn't be far from truth, literotica still sells pretty well.

Or you think 50 shades of Gray became mainstream magically?

 

I think clause #9 would be sort of illegal.

If you are paying someone for their work then you can't exactly get your money back after you made money off their work. I mean, you can't just pay your architect for his design, sell the design then ask for your money back because the design didn't sell as expected.

 

lol...if anyone reads those terms and conditions and then signs it they deserve whatever fate brings them. Its like they dont understand that there are other places they can write and get views by netizens like us and most of them are free or just charge like 5-10$ a month for their platform fees.

Kinda shocked there isnt a clause stating your organs belong to em too though.

 

I mean, they kind of have your soul "essentially" signed over to Webnovel so they dont need your body as, if they want to make you run around in circles, they can essentially make you til death.

But, back to seriousness, I am just looking back here to see if those who say they signed, @strifelord123 and @alemillach can just say that clause X.X doesn't exist in their version of the contract or that clause X.X on theirs isn't worded like that.

It is a pretty simple thing I am hoping they take a bit of time to dispute or clear up. But looking back at webnovel forums, the user/admin named CKTalon is avoiding the matter entirely, claiming it is not their responsibility to clear up the issue. Whoever is signed will have the responsibility to review the offer and take it for what it is worth.

Not really inspiring confidence on that front for me. I would have wanted a clarification of specific clauses to be mentioned (though not entirely their responsibility). Doing so, would at least put things in some form of "black and white" as the official stance (in the present time).

 

Not all contracts are enforcible. You can't sign away you fundamental rights knowingly or not without involving witnesses and possibly a Judge.

For example, the EULA would technically count as contracts. However, not many companies are willing to test it out in court for whether the EULA would be enforcible or not.

QI has a problem with the contract because at some point it has to establish the authors as "employee" or independent contractor who sells his copyrights to QI for compensation.

The 1st will be a nightmare for QI with labor law pay while the 2nd one would land QI in serious hot water if they made any money of the work and don't pay.

 

I think you missunderstand something here. Those are not terms and condition. Anyone can host their novel in webnovel.com for free. But if they want to make money from it, they need to sign this contract

 

Ahh makes some sense. Still think you'd have to have brain damage to sign a contract that looks like that. Or forced by the circumstances but if you arnt in a forced situation and sign something as one sided like that for shame.

 

Yup, if the novel is good enough, they can get more money from patreon. No need to sign that contract

 

Add this.
All copyright of any given work now belongs to Qidian, until 50 years after the author's death. Qidian can do whatever the fuck they want with it without having to negotiate anything with the author.

Legal fees caused by copyright disputes will still be entirely paid by the author, not Qidian.

Qidian can release any work on the platform for free.

Qidian has the right to any social media accounts of the author.

Qidian is not obligated to provide authors with any employee benefits.

Upon signing the contract the author is obligated to provide an exact schedule for how and when a work will be completed. Failure to following the schedule will be seen as breaking the contract, to which Qidian can respond by not distributing benefits to the author, or requiring the author to take responsibility for losses incurred.

Qidian can adapt your work in any way they like.

If Qidian doesn't like you, they can kick you off and give your penname and social media handles to someone else and your forced to hand over all your notes.

Qidian can change your work any way you want, without your permission.

 

Can't say I'm surprised.