Going Live This Friday

I’ve agreed with my editor that the novel will go live at noon this Friday.

After that, updates will be posted at 7:30 every morning, with the entire day’s content released all at once.

I’m not releasing chapters at midnight because I don’t want my esteemed readers staying up late to wait for updates and harming their rest.

Releasing them in the morning also means that if any chapter gets flagged for review, there will still be the whole day to slowly figure out where the problem lies.

I still remember my first book: 44 collections!

Collections, not follow-through readers, and definitely not subscriptions!

My second book had over a hundred collections, though I don’t remember the exact number.

Both of those books were abandoned halfway through.

My third book, The Film-and-TV Universe Begins with Convincing Wang Duoyu to Change Careers, was meant to be a film-and-TV crossover world made up primarily of comedies.

The opening was great. I got a private message from the site after only six chapters, and I was incredibly excited at the time.

But afterward, I kept running into reviews. I didn’t have much experience then, and I didn’t even know how to find the text that had been flagged. My mindset collapsed, so I deleted all the content about official organizations such as the Transmigrator Management Bureau from my outline.

Then, after the book went live, I discovered that many readers liked the Love Apartment scenes, so I went off course and wrote a lot of Love Apartment-related content. In the end, the whole thing completely fell apart.

I barely managed to wrap up the story with an ending. I suppose it still counts as a complete story. At least I should have lived up to the esteemed readers who subscribed and not made them feel as if I had cheated them out of their pocket money.

This is my fourth book.

With the support of all my esteemed readers, it finally looks like I might have a chance at becoming a premium title!

But it’s still hard to say how things will go from here. This book isn’t a conventional wish-fulfillment novel. Of course, it isn’t a protagonist-torture novel either. I thought about it for a long time, but I simply couldn’t categorize it, so I could only name it a "winging-it novel."

My editor previously taught me how to write, how to find satisfying moments, how to control the pacing… But I just couldn’t learn.

I really couldn’t. I don’t know what counts as a satisfying moment, and I don’t know how to control the pacing or anything like that. I don’t even know whether readers will find what I write satisfying. All I can say is that I find it pretty satisfying to write.

That’s rather self-indulgent, but I suppose it’s hard to achieve good results that way.

This book can’t give readers a strong sense of immersion. All I can say is that I’m telling a fairly interesting story!

People have to avoid their own shortcomings. If I force myself to imitate something I don’t understand and try to write it anyway, I’m afraid I’ll end up drawing a dog while trying to paint a tiger.

So this time, I’ve written entirely according to my own ideas. I’ll make some minor adjustments based on readers’ opinions, but the overall direction won’t change.

Of course I want to write a novel that everyone will like, but I don’t know whether everyone will like it.

All I can do is comfort myself by saying that I’m just an ordinary person. Surely there are some readers whose wavelengths match mine, right?!

Thank you, thank you!

Lastly, I’d like to ask everyone for a first subscription.

As a transitional book, I’m already completely satisfied with how far I’ve written it.

After it goes live, I’ll release five chapters first.

Because the subscription conversion rate for fan fiction is usually a little lower, we’ll use two thousand first subscriptions as the baseline. After that, for every additional two hundred first subscriptions, I’ll add one chapter, with the total settled at any time. If the first subscriptions exceed three thousand, I’ll release five additional chapters.

Once we pass the two-thousand baseline, I’ll add one chapter for every additional two hundred average subscriptions. This will remain in effect permanently.

As for rewards, I’ll add one chapter for every five disciples, one for every two stewards, and one for every helmsman, continuing in that manner. A hall master will earn two chapters, a protector three chapters… I don’t dare hope for a grand helmsman. If there is one, a grand helmsman will earn twelve chapters, a silver grand helmsman 150 chapters, and a golden grand helmsman… let’s forget it. I couldn’t pay off that debt!

As for monthly votes, during the first month’s new-book rankings, I’ll add one chapter for every 300 monthly votes. This includes the monthly votes I’ve already received; they’ll all be counted and made up later. The three monthly votes that Qidian gives readers with every chapter update will also count.

I currently have around a hundred chapters in reserve. Until the stockpile runs out, I’ll write ten thousand words a day. After that, I’ll write 6,000 words on workdays and 8,000 or 10,000 on weekends. If the results are excellent, I may even consider quitting my job to write full-time.

All the chapters mentioned above are calculated at 2,000 words per chapter. Once the stockpile is used up, I may switch to large chapters of 6,000 words.

I’ve always used 2,000-word chapters mainly because readers might dislike certain chapters and want to skip them. With direct chapter subscriptions, they can simply skip those chapters. But if I switch to larger chapters, that won’t be possible.

Besides, 2,000 words is very short. You can casually flip through it while waiting for a bus and finish reading it. But 6,000 words is fairly long and may not be as convenient for fragmented reading.

I don’t know whether everyone can accept that, so I wanted to ask first. You can share your opinions in the chapter comments or in the group.