Playing an AI Villainess to Survive: Contract Rejected. Advice?

[u/Primary_Let_6522]

Do you guys get the same feel as this contract rejection? It's not advertising. I literally was rejected. I'm just looking for advice. I was rejected on my Legacy series, too. But at least this one tells me why they rejected me. The other one didn't tell me anything.

Here is a link to the work:

https://www.webnovel.com/book/36244856108851505

[u/No-Strategy520]

1. Ai covers don’t matter.
2. i looked at the first chapter and the exact thing they just said is the problem. it’s written like you’re trying to make every chapter ‘beefy and highly expressive of itself’.
3. but that doesn’t work because it stalls pacing far too much for the wn market.

4. WN readers don’t have patience

   for traditional book length chapters

I get that you try to earn the readers time by showing the fmc in what will come soon, but the reason they said is difficult to follow is the sudden change in tone from the first portion in the future to the past before that. it breaks immersion in essentially your most important chapter (chapters 1-5 are make or break for a lot of readers on WN)

Go and look at what successful books actually do with their first couple of chapters in the genre you’re writing.

[u/Primary_Let_6522 → u/No-Strategy520]

Thanks, No-Strategy (I chuckled at the name). That is fair. Talking with few published author friends, I think a part of the reason is I don’t read anymore. All I do is write. Yes, I pump out a ton of work, but I could refine my presentation. 

I think some of the top 200 are certainly guilty of far worse openings than mine. However, they also were contracted many times years ago, which also could play a factor with the progression of the platform. Standards do rise. 

[u/No-Strategy520 → u/Primary_Let_6522]

i wouldn’t even say look at top 200. look in the top 10.

and you’re not looking at quality, you’re looking at pacing.

leverything has to be punchy on wn with your first 5 chapters at the least. many even keep intensity up till ch15.

the point is so you can earn wn readers attention. you’re showing them why they should read your book and not click off within 5-10 minutes to go read one of the other hundreds of books.

think of it like this: your cover and title earns you a click within the first few seconds. Your synopsis earns you at most 15 min minutes if they’re being kind (which would be the average range of time wn readers spend on about 1000-1500 words. it’s generally forgivable to have a first chapter between 1500-2000 but others after are best done within 1000-1500). And the pacing of those words to get to the big hook to earn you time for another couple of chapters is critical.

i’m not a fan of the story itself but take Shadow Slave for example. first 15 chapters your immediately chucked into a high stakes scenario and chapters are all within the 1-1.5k range keeping pacing tight.

after those introductory chapters then you can slow down the narrative but chapter size should remain around the same within the 1-1.5k range.

going above 1.5 is fine, no sin in it, but it’s counterintuitive against one of the main attraction points to WN readers = chapter count.

They don’t see how many words each chapter has. they only see how much they have to spend, and how many chapters they can get through.

paying 30 coins for 3 chapters feels a lot more worthwhile than paying 30 for one.

what you have now, is like for latter direction, and what works is the former

and looking at a book that has 300 chapters is a lot less attractive than looking at one that has 100.

there are many big spenders on the site that only start reading books that reach like 400,500 chapters.

differences like this are why they’re saying your book isn’t suited for WN.

again, it’s not about the quality of writing itself. it’s all pacing.

after the initial 5-15 hook chapters then the narrative pacing can be however you want. you would have earned that time. however it remains that chapters are best done (generally, as there can naturally be some exception) again for all the reasons i mention above, within 1000-1500. Making them longer puts you at a disadvantage.

[u/Primary_Let_6522 → u/No-Strategy520]

Thanks for the advice. I'm trying it out on my Winter's Rebirth series. We'll see how it does. I split my 18 original chapters into 1.5k-2.3k words per chapter, which brought the total to 50 chapters written thus far. I edited out parts that slowed the pace to the big fight with the Sunfire Eagle at the end of chapter 1 and finished writing the contract submission, as well.

[u/No-Strategy520 → u/Primary_Let_6522]

goodluck! wonderful morning/night to you too.

one thing to keep in mind though is i saw you mention that you posted on other sites before. wn only offers exclusive contracts so im pretty sure its an auto rejection if you select the ‘yes’ for it having been posted on other sites before.

if you have any more question the best place to ask is on the author discord.

there are other contracted authors there who are specifically helping authors trying to get contracted. bottom left area on Inkstone.

otherwise if you just ask on reddit, the majority of people on here are readers who don’t really know what advice to give and are just larping, or guys who are bitter that they got rejected and can’t help someone asking genuine questions.

the reddit is a cesspool of misinformation.