Volume 5: Comment Block

Volume 5 END

[This is something I wrote in the past, back when I was seeing the light through the depression. What I wrote here came before the one in Volume 4.]

Anyways, continuing with last time’s postscript.. It’s probably just me overthinking things. Bottom line is I just need to keep writing for a decade. How exactly I would find an opportunity to grow into my goals.. No idea. I just need to be patient and work, work, work. I guess it’s the same for any other goal out there.

So if you do have any wish/ goals/ aspirations you wish to achieve, just keep at it! I’m sure everyone struggles with it every now and then, achieving anything is more of a mental battle more than anything else. This feeling of ‘I won’t make it’, or ‘I’m doing it wrong’-- I feel it too. It’s like driving into a world of fog, or swimming upstream.

I don’t really have a conclusion to it all, I still get worried and confused at times. Then again.. It might really be just me. I’ve said it a lot of times but it’s basically the concept that the fact that ‘I don’t know if I’m doing things right’ exists is because my mind thinks of it. Honestly, who knows if I’m doing things right or wrong? More so.. Isn’t it normal that I’d be doing a lot of wrong things before I reach my end goal? Funky cognitive dissonance.

Another concern I actually want to confess (man.. This author is babbling a lot of nonsense) is the fact that I probably am just selfish. It’s confusing at times because I write because I love writing.. I write also because there are people who love my writing.. I write also because I want to earn money.. 

The third one. To earn money. A crucial aspect of earning money is providing value. In this case, my illustrations and writing. I feel that I’m being stingy requesting money because ‘I’ve provided value’, and I for some reason expect an equal compensation. Which is a little dumb. The volume-ly EX chapter concept feels like some money bag scheme, and I somehow have this feeling that I’m being selfish. My commitment to provide 6 chapters a week (publicly) feels like a joke, a selfish marketing scheme. At the same time, I want to figure out a way to generate revenue cuz if authors on Webnovel can gain millions of views even when their chapters are locked behind a paywall, why can’t I? 

I even had this idea to lock up chapters for my future novels. And to be honest, I’m losing sight that there’s someone here willing to support me on patreon, thanks @Parsatag. 

Listening to marketing talks by Seth Godin and Darren Hardy (Google them!) in this saturated economy, the only way to win is to please the smallest viable audience. Have your audience trust you and want your work enough they would go round the world just to buy your stuff. 

The entire Ponzi scheme where you can upload novels online and expect the free novel to go boom, and then when you’ve reached the point of publishing the book sells well.. It’s a pipedream is it? Or it’s that we just don’t have the service/ culture built for that. Though I’ve never reached the stage of publishing, and know nothing about it, I don’t think it’s really as simple as putting your book up on amazon kindle. Most people, like me, read a good web novel and go, man this author is amazing and don’t go follow up on that author or spend money to support the author. Not to say this is wrong or inappropriate, but that’s just what it is. I’m guilty of this too.

Unlike in Japan, there’s no company doing marketing incentives for light novel authors/ web novel authors (lucky authors in Japan are given endorsement deals, get an anime and such; I’m sugar coating this cuz I don’t know the reality of it). Actually, the next closest thing for English writers is Webnovel. If not, it’s: put your well copy-edited manuscript online bookstore and then what?? Expect it to just sell? It’s hard to really make sense of who would want to buy your novel when your novel has already been read for free.

Unless you’re thinking that those buying the published version of the novel are newcomers, people that didn’t know about you before. What’s the point in building a fan base in the web novel world then when your revenue is driven from anonymous people?

That’s what’s driving me crazy. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. Oh, remember why I said Ponzi scheme up above? It’s really the web novel site that’s really earning. Assuming 98 out of a hundred novels fail, the two successful novels would go on to generate the income for the site. As in Webnovel. Webnovel wins, the other 98 percent of authors, wiped out. (Of course, this is an extreme example but you get the point). Fair warning, it’s not Webnovel or any web novel hosting sites being unfair, it’s a fact.

Webnovel is not a bad site or service per say. It depends on what you’re looking for, Webnovel makes it convenient for authors to focus on their craft. Forums have a lot of weird info about Webnovel which.. I don’t know how to make sense. It’s as confusing as the world of Crypto. Anyways, Webnovel solves all the marketing and even provides monthly pay for a minimal amount of work (minimal cuz once you’ve reached it, it’s not hard to write 3k words a day, 5-7 pages with font size of 11, which equates to about 10 pages in a font of 14. Then again.. I remembered that 6 months ago, I struggled to write 7 pages a week). But there’s a price to pay, the thing is that: I don’t want to pay that price. My rights to own my story, in exchange for the marketing and income from writing.

So how exactly does one earn money from writing? I think I’m starting to piece together the puzzle, albeit slowly. There’s a lot of things I don't know, but I believe the answer is found in learning how to build a small scale business. It’s no longer just about being an author, we have to learn to create a community, build systems to drive traffic, market and sell our products.

It sounds incredibly stupid coming from a unkowledgable guy like me that has not a clue how this works. But I think it is the truth. There’s no nice service here to help market your products unless you're interested in losing your rights by publishing in Webnovel. And even if you get help from a generic publishing company.. Question is: will they entertain you? As for self-publishing.. That’s where you have to drive your own marketing and traffic. Creating a business. A small scale one. And it’s normal for a business to take years. And there’s a lot of skill, knowledge and effort involved in creating a successful one.

I don’t know. But this is my opinion, just sharing my thoughts. I maybe naive, maybe publishing a book is the way to go. Maybe people who read your web novel would be willing to support your work. I have no idea. 

I’ll admit. I’ve not been as cheerful as I was before, being all grateful and nice that I’m getting a lot of views. I’ve changed, I want to go back to before but I can’t. I’ve learnt more, I’ve come to realize more. Cutting away from the comments because I couldn’t face the others, scared that they wouldn’t accept this crude, blatant, no longer cheery and optimistic me. Of course, I am grateful that you follow my work (even though I’m such an asshole at times; you may or may not feel it in my work, but I assure you, in RL, I beat myself up about being selfish and being money oriented). 

Not that I’m pessimistic, but knowing that the views metric or comment metric don’t really matter all that much, knowing that simply writing isn’t the answer (but it’s very important to do so as it’s the base of everything I do)-- that there’s a long ass road to go to become successful as an author. It’s down right demoralizing.  

Well.. it’s demoralizing if you think it is.. Cuz the joy is in the journey and not the result..

Thank you for reading!!