As many of you may have heard over Twitter last month, we discovered that some of our projects were poached and sold on a digital publishing platform. Whilst we managed to take it down, we felt that we can no longer allow for our novels to be easily taken and misappropriated. Aggregators, especially, have been the hardest to deal with and the crippling effect it has had on us as an indie publisher has taken its toll.
We are, therefore, implementing a paywall system to better guard our novels.
The benefits of this system is
- Getting rid of advertisements which have been pesky for readers
We have received complains that it interrupts their reading and have been proven to be a general nuisance. Additionally, we had seen the effects of COVID-19, where the revenue drops drastically. We also noticed many users have ad blockers turned on, which impacts revenue which leads us to point 2. - Sustainable stream of revenue
Most of our completed novels do not have a sustainable stream of revenue. To ensure that license holders will continue to license new projects to us and re-license existing novels when those contracts are up, we have to ensure that there’s a substantial flow of revenue. - Making reading accessible
From our experience in the past three book launches, we’ve had a number of fans come up to us and say that they’re unable to redeem or purchase our books because it is unavailable and inaccessible in their country. We want to make it so that they’re able to read and enjoy our novels, and still be able to support the industry or authors that they love.
Therefore, we have made changes and are implementing the paywall system starting this week.
Existing completed novels, with the exception of Fake Slackers, have all been locked behind a paywall. Fake Slackers which has just ended will still be available to read for free until the 10/7/2020, upon which, it is scheduled to be transitioned across.
On-going and original novels will not be moved and will be transitioned into it gradually. Please keep a lookout for the notice as we will announce it in advance.
Paywall System: An Introduction
If you are familiar with the paywall system on Renta! and Webnovel, then ours would not be so foreign. The first 30 chapters of each project is made available free to read and sample the novel. You must be a registered user on our site to be able to purchase locked chapters on the novel’s page via our virtual currency, ‘Carrot’ at the fixed cost of 8 carrots per chapter.
Example of the paywall system
Purchasing the chapters means you permanently own them. In the event that a license is not renewable, then the chapters purchased (including the available first free 30 chapters) are yours to keep and it will never disappear from your library.
Carrots
Carrots are our virtual currency. The values of Carrots are as follows:
- $1.99 – 100 Carrots
- $3.99 – 300 Carrots
- $7.99 – 480 Carrots
- $15.99 – 970 Carrots
- $23.99 – 1550 Carrots
- $49.99 – 3250 Carrots
These will never expire, and can be used for all of our novels.
eBook Store
Our eBook store is now available for registered users to purchase books from. Books sold here are ePub3 and DRM free. In addition, new releases will be available for pre-order through the eBook store on our site before their launch on Kindle and Google Books.
As they are DRM free, you can convert the files easily into other formats via a free software like Calibre and can easily launch these books in any of your e-readers. We hope this helps readers who aren’t users of Kindle and Google Books, as well as users from countries outside of the regional distribution of both apps.
Q&A
- What purchasing methods do you accept for Carrots and eBooks?
PayPal, and all major credit cards accepted by Stripe. - I’ve previously supported you on Ko-Fi or Patreon. What benefits do I get from this move?
We want to reward you for showing your support to us in the past. If you have previously donated to our Ko-fi or subscribed to a translator/author’s Patreon, email us with your username and a snapshot of your previous donation to them. We will credit your account with Carrots that you can to purchase locked chapters. - Why haven’t you implemented subscription plans?
We decided against implementing subscription plans for now as our library is too small for us to justify the value for money for you as a user. When our library grows, we will look into it and should we move into that system, will compensate all existing paid users. - Will you be removing ads for good?
Yes, we will slowly be moving away from ads. We definitely hear mixed signals about it from users, and we do not want to plague you any longer with these cancerous ads. - Will my reading be impacted whilst reading the locked chapters?
No. Unless you have insufficient Carrots in your account, the transition moving between locked chapters when you read should be unchanged from your previous experience here.
If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us via the comment section, Twitter and Discord.