Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: 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.

  [Youth of Wind]: As a newbie who has not published yet, I’m so discouraged!

  [Akmond]: Hehe, paid lease is only the beginning. You must have 3000 readers willing to pay for your book, then your book can enter the Power Ranking. Do you know the percentage of that? Only 3 or 4 books among the 8 can enter the Power Ranking!

  [Akmond]: Now let’s sum up. If you just published a book, here is your future: if you aim at getting a contract, then your chance is 1/9; if your goal is the Power Ranking, your chance is 1/2250; if you want your novel to be tagged as Recommended and be remembered forever by Qidian, then your odds are 1/5000. When you write at Qidian, you have 1/5000 chance to be the numerator, and 4999/5000 chance to be the denominator! A general builds his success on ten thousand bleaching bones. This is an appropriate description!

  Some people expressed their doubt below the post.

  [Smile]: Are there that many? 18,000 people entering the online writing business at the same time?

  [Akmond]: Of course, you’ll be surprised. According to official statistics, there are 1.4 billion people, and there are 60 million online writing! 60 million! Crowds and crowds of people are entering the online writing business. You have a better chance to succeed by being an extra in Binhai Studio, being picked by a director passing and make you the next Wang Baoqiang… You may get injured by being an extra on set. Online writing is much easier, and all you need to do is be literate and able to type. But 99.99% of people end up being the denominator.

  Despite this [Akmond] was telling the brutal truth, the crowd of people who replied to the post were shocked at the statistics and cried out in despair. [Akmond] also gained a “Pro” title for his knowledge in the online writing industry. He quickly added that he was also one of the denominators, except that he failed enough times to know how to fail with swagger…


  Zhang Zian wanted to correct him. It was not 18,000 people, but 17,999 people plus 1 monkey. But he didn’t do it, as he was not in the mood to ridicule.

  He remembered the days of bringing Famous to Binhai Studio for movies. Each day he saw many people wearing green military coats gather at the entrance of the studio and surround every production team that entered and exited, being picked and chosen like truckloads of cheap cabbage. Those chosen by production teams were happy to make a daily salary of 50 Yuan, while those who weren’t picked were disappointed, and left

  like an ebbing tide, shivering in the cold wind, waiting for the next production team to arrive.

  Back then he was thinking that it was so hard to be an extra on the set. They persevered with their movie star dreams, hoping to be the next Wang Baoqiang. But compared to them, [Akmond] seemed right, that online writers also walked the same difficult path of fierce competition, fighting hard to be the few numerators.

  There was a lot going on with the online writing section of Wang Haige Forum. There were a lot of posts, and it seemed that there were posts and replies every minute. Apart from the posts that discussed online writing as the one above, some posts were comments on certain novels, either good or bad. There was something strange going on: if someone posted negative comments, then the following posts were all of similar negative comments with very few exceptions. But if the post was positive, then there would be replies questioning if the author of the post was part of the paid Internet Water Army, or disguising him/herself as an ordinary reader to recommend his/her own work.

  Internet Water Army was a phrase that Zhang Zian once heard from Zhao Qi. Each time Zhao Qi visited the pet shop to buy imported cat food, she asked for a discount for doing him a favor, claiming that if she didn’t help him fight the water army hired by Stars supermarket in Wang Haige Forum, his pet shop would have been out of business. He had always doubted this matter. Were there really internet water armies lurking in the Forum?

  But these had nothing to do with him for now, nor with Pi. He decided to get Pi started with a small goal, which was getting a contract with the website and becoming the 1/9. Others could be done after. According to the posts, if they got a contract, the website would promote their work, and make the novel visible to more readers.

  But how could they get a contract?