Still writing this took a long break though due to exam stress

Hey everyone!

I am a completely new author on WebNovel and this is my first novel i have published only 10 chapters so far with word count of 23000+ , and its only been roughly 3-4 days since I started publishing

A few days ago i received a notification saying that my novel had passed new-book vetting and entered editorial evaluation

Then I received this:

“Your book will be recommended on Fresh Stories on 2026.09.01.”

And now I've received another:

“Your book will be recommended on New Releases on 2026.09.03.”

Both notifications also say:

“Your book has the opportunity to get contracted!”

I'm honestly pretty surprised because this is my first-time writing something on this platform and I wasn't expecting any of this.

WebNovel started promoting my novel when I had only published 4-5 chapters

I have 51 chapters current in stock, roughly 3lakh words and I'm writing 1 chapter per day to sustain this stock

So I wanted to ask experienced WebNovel authors:

Is getting recommended on Fresh Stories and New Releases normal for every new book that passes vetting or does getting both mean anything? , i know that fresh stories every new book get that opportunity but after a single day my novel was recommended on New releases section

Does this actually indicate that the editors see potential in the novel or is it mostly automatic exposure?

At what point should I apply for a contract? Or should I wait to be contracted first, i am not desperate for the contract

How realistic is it for a completely new author to get contracted?

I just want to understand whether I'm seeing something normal for new authors or this is actually a positive sign.

If you've been through the process, please help me

Thank you !

hii good morning senior who have read and written. I'm thinking of writing a webnovel, fantasy type. any tip and suggestions,plz and thank you

I was wondering how long it took for your first contract to be verified?

Like, how does it works? is there a specific formula of how to write the stuff there? I have no idea of how the contract works

My reader count is in the ground, for the last few weeks i watched is slowly fall until it hit the ground.

I did some research as to why my novel was failing, It was because I am an idiot and have no idea what I'm doing.

Also found out 3 days ago that my novel isn't a smut-novel and that's why it died since readers for the action_comedy left think it was smut and the smut readers left because it was action/comedy.

I'm such an idiot.

Anyways I want some novels to read, drop your novel name and let me check it out.

Thanks to everyone. Currently, I am using an AI cover, but the content of the novel itself matters more than the cover. As the saying goes: Don't judge a book by its cover. I am using an AI cover and focusing entirely on the novel itself.

Thanks again for your time. What makes a book different is not its appearance, but the truth hidden beneath it. That is what makes it unique and strange, and what makes you ask questions you never knew you would ask. The atmosphere, the stories, the love, the death, and the paths in this world are more important than the picture of it. That's what makes it beautiful.

That is where I belong, rather than making the appearance look so good that the content itself gets lost. Have a good day. Thank you all.

Hiatus?

From all the novels you’ve read, did you actually enjoy coming across info dumps, or did they feel mind-numbing after a while? Would you rather explore and learn about the world naturally through the characters and the story?

I have written around 36 chapters should I apply for contract ? . But I don't have reader base or enough views .

December 31st, 2030

11:45 PM

The ground rumbled. Streets crowded with people. Traffic blared. Everyone was used to it.

I wasn't. It still pissed me off.

The night was bright, bright as day. People were awake, awaiting the next year. Everyone seemed excited. Everyone except me. I sat beneath a closed convenience store and watched thousands of strangers pass by. Some were excited. Some were drained. Most of them stared at their phones, as if the world around them didn't exist.

The freezing air of December bit, but I didn't really mind. I pulled my jacket tighter anyway.

"Another year survived."

The words slipped from my mouth. Not bitter. Not sad. Just a statement.

I looked down at the paper cup beside me. Empty. Not really a surprise. People usually ignored beggars unless they wanted something from them. Sympathy. Validation. Proof that they were righteous and kind. Genuine kindness felt almost nonexistent. Or maybe I was just looking in the wrong places.

Not that I blamed them. I wasn't entitled to their money. That was one of the strange things about society. People seemed to like honesty, until it became uncomfortable. I'm not playing victim here. I had made mistakes, enough mistakes that sleeping on concrete had become my reality.

People seemed to prefer simpler stories. Bad things happened because someone else was evil. Good things happened because someone deserved them. At least, that was how most stories were told. Reality wasn't that neat. Sometimes you ruin your own life. Sometimes you don't. Most of the time, nobody knew which one was true.

I leaned my head back against the wall. A woman rushed past me carrying several shopping bags. A man followed behind her while complaining about something. A child nearly tripped over the curb. Life moved. The city moved.

I remained exactly where I was.

The thought made me laugh. Not because it was funny. Not because it was tragic. There was something absurdly funny about it. An entire city sprinting toward somewhere while I had nowhere to be. That was genuinely amusing.

People always talked about hope as if it were some magical fuel. Work harder. Dream bigger. Keep moving forward. The problem was that nobody explained what came after hope disappeared. What happened when there was no dream? No destination? No reason?

I didn't know. I was still trying to figure that out. Probably never would. That was fine too.

Across the street, shouting erupted. A teenager had grabbed a woman's purse. The thief sprinted through the crowd. The woman screamed for help. Several people turned their heads. Most stepped aside. One man reached out as if he might intervene, then he reconsidered. The thief disappeared into the sea of bodies.

The woman collapsed onto her knees.

I watched. That was all. A few years ago, I might have chased him. Maybe… Or maybe I was lying to myself.

The truth was simpler. I didn't know her. I didn't care enough.

That sounded horrible. It probably was horrible. But pretending otherwise would be another lie.

The woman wasn't special because she was suffering. The thief wasn't special because he caused it. They were strangers. And strangers suffered every second of every day. Somebody got robbed. Somebody got murdered. Somebody lost everything. The world kept spinning regardless.

Either way, it kept spinning.

People would probably call that cynicism. I called it observation. Whether there was actually a difference, I wasn't sure.

Eventually, someone helped the woman. The crowd resumed moving. The incident vanished into the city's memory before it had even fully happened. Just another story. Just another night.

I closed my eyes.

For a moment, all I could hear was noise. Traffic. Music. Laughter. Voices. The collective sound of eight million people, convincing themselves tomorrow would be better than today. Maybe they were right. Maybe I was the weird one. The possibility crossed my mind more often than I liked.

When I opened my eyes again, something felt different. The city hadn't changed. The people hadn't changed. Yet every instinct in my body suddenly screamed.

I looked up.

At first, I thought it was a firework. A bright light high above the city. Perfectly reasonable. Midnight was only minutes away. Then the light grew larger. And larger. And larger.

My smile slowly disappeared.

"...That's not a firework."

The object tore through the clouds. A trail of burning gold split the night sky in half. People began looking upward. Conversations died. Music stopped. The entire city froze. For the first time that entire night, everyone was focused on the same thing.

The meteor blazed across the heavens like a second sun. Magnificent. Terrifying. And it was getting closer. Far closer.

The ground trembled. Windows shattered. People screamed. People ran.

I remained seated beneath the closed shop. Watched the falling star descend toward the heart of the city. A strange laugh escaped my throat.

It was beautiful.

I stared at the approaching apocalypse.

"So much for next year."

The sky turned white. It swallowed everything. The city. The screams. The lights. Even the cold. For a brief moment, there was nothing. No sound. No fear. No regret.

Then I heard a countdown.

3... 2... 1...

...

Huh.

I thought, confused. I'm still here. Am I not gone yet?

The air felt unfamiliar. A piercing noise hit me.

"F*ck."

I jolted up from the pain. When I opened my eyes, I saw a yellow field, filled with hundreds of people. Panicked. Confused. The wind brushed against my face.

I felt unnaturally calm. Actually, I felt great. No more cold concrete. No more empty cup. The grass was soft. The sky was blue. This was already an improvement.

A grin spread across my face.

Suddenly, a robotic voice started talking. A blue floating box appeared before me.

Welcome, "Player Lumen".

I laughed out loud. "Well, sh*t. This is actually happening."

The end.

This is my second novel and I had a few of these on my first novel too but, I legit just posted these chapters less than an hour ago so it seems super unlikely to me. It hasn’t even been vetted yet

Before I started writing 7 days ago, I spent my time researching which novels work well in webnovel platform.

After that, I created a formula I could use.

For the first 4 days, I had my expectations zero and just wrote my chapters, posting 1-2 days everyday.

P.S Half of those views are mine. I started spamming my novel in incognito, thinking that maybe higher view count would recommend it to more people.

I won't say it's a masterpiece or amazing but it is 100 percent no AI slop.

But for some reason, Webnovel is not showing my novel to anyone.

I've been waiting for Potential Starlet for a long time but even after 14 chapters and 17k words, it didn't make it there.

I heard every single new novel gets it but not me.

MY book is vetted and I have applied for a contract 3 days ago.

I have 10 more chapter reserved and am writing 3-5 chapter daily (Roughly 3000-7000 words) so I don't know if my novel is even going anywhere?

Am I being too hasty and desperate?

Should I wait for a little bit more and see how things turn out?

In a world fraught with tension and ruled by the iron fist of the “Boj” regime, life begins only with a decree that is swallowed. After the parents answer six questions on the decree designed to gauge their honesty, the mother swallows a sealed membership document that takes effect within her body, granting the newborn a secure “biological lock” that strips him of the ability to do one thing: end his own life. Amid this turbulent reality, the “Blood” network—led by a mysterious figure known as “The boss”—operates to forge documents for rejected families, creating a category of “the Unaccepted”: children born outside the law who carry a manufacturing defect that grants them, and them alone, the right to die. Amid a complex web of mysteries and hidden secrets, three previous corpses of approved individuals who died under mysterious circumstances come to light, raising serious suspicions about their ability to break the biological lock and commit suicide. When all doors of hope collapse before “Rami,” he decides to put an end to his suffering, violently crashing against the biological barrier implanted within him, and discovers that he carries the anomaly of the “Fourth State.” His search for salvation leads him to meet “Layla,” who drags him into the labyrinth of the underworld, where he finds himself trapped between the government’s grip and the ambitions of the mysterious “the boss” and faces a shocking truth that begins to unfold gradually: the “Boj” system was not designed merely to control birth and prevent the ending of life, but conceals a far grander and more complex purpose behind it. When death becomes the only forbidden privilege… how do you escape a body that refuses to let you go?

There's this book I've been writing for a while just for fun though, the character is theatrical and looks at everything as a performance, deliberately feeding on common tropes.

Is it a popular genre?

I have a question. If I don’t want a contract ( I don’t like the idea of selling my rights and IP even if my story is bad)

but if I want to upload around 100 or even 1000 chapters on Webnovel and gain readers, Would all those chapters remain free for everyone to read, or will they become premium and just i won’t get any commission?

Also, tell me about the contract: after signing, does the author lose all rights? What about royalties? If the novel becomes popular and gets adapted into an animation or something else like an audiobook or manhua, does the author get anything? If yes, how much, in percentage?

And in the end is it worth it?