So the other day my successful web novel author friends came by for coffee, and to take a look at my novel manuscript (YAY!). I was able to ask them for advice, and learn more about how e-publishing via free websites works.
A web novel generally requires consistent updates – multiple times a week, or weekly at the very least, on free websites. It can be monetized through Patreon, where avid readers can pay to read chapters upon chapters of the story in advance.
But there are differences between which stories will work as web novels as opposed to traditional publishing.
For starters, there’s point-of-view (POV). While it is okay in traditional publishing to shift POV when there is a new scene, this is likely to turn off readers of web novels. Web novels need, for the most part, one POV. This is because people feel invested in the main character, the narrator. The narrator’s voice is what draws them in to begin with, and a web novel will lose a lot of readers after the first chapter if the main character’s POV is not to the reader’s liking. It could be the character’s way of speaking to the reader that may turn the reader off. There’s a lot of factors.
Tomorrow: Wordcount in web novels.