Today's Ten-Update Blitz, Let's Talk

Starting at 6 p.m. tonight, there'll be one chapter every hour. Ten updates today.

Speaking of which, I recently embarrassed myself. My editor came over and told me, "You've set a record."

Appearing Master: What record?

Editor: Whether a novel is good or bad, the usual ratio of favorites to active readers is about 5:1. With a new book, since it has fewer words, even 7:1 is considered bad. You're already in the double digits. What use are all those favorites to you?

Appearing Master: Can you blame me for that? I never told people to favorite it and then not read it. Besides, it proves the esteemed readers trust me. They add it to their bookshelves without even reading it, planning to wait until there's more and then catch up.

Editor: Recommendations are assigned based solely on the number of active readers. With numbers like yours, there's no way I can arrange a recommendation for you. Will your active readership even grow? Didn't you complain before that one of your recommendation slots was bad? The problem now is that you can't beat the others in the competition, and you haven't reached the minimum requirement for that slot. You understand.

Later, I thought about it, and it really was my problem. I'd been too implicit about a lot of things and hadn't explained them clearly.

First of all, this book hasn't flopped yet. There's still a chance to save it, because the growth curve doesn't look too bad just from its shape, and it hasn't plateaued. The slope is simply too shallow.

That's different from the two books that flopped before this one. Those had clearly reached their ceilings, and even official recommendations couldn't make their numbers rise anymore.

So this book hasn't been sentenced to death.

Second, some thoughts about flopping.

There was a reader who often criticized me back when Salted Fish was being written. His words were extremely harsh. This time, he got worked up again and hoped my new book would continue to flop, so I'd go back to writing urban fiction.

What I really want to tell him is that if this book flops too, I may have to say goodbye to everyone for a while. I'll give up on unrealistic fantasies, do something else to make a living first, and accumulate some more life experience before writing again.

It's true that I've been planning two more books, Salted Fish 2 and Rebirth 2013. But people are always faced with all kinds of helpless situations. In life, there are ideals on one side and reality on the other, and plans don't necessarily come true. Especially when everything I write flops, I have no confidence that writing urban fiction will definitely work out.

The words "flop" hurt me deeply now. A true warrior dares to face blood flowing freely.

When I announced my new book over on Salted Fish, I complained that I didn't know how to copy someone else's homework. That was actually because writing books is my ideal. Because of that ideal, I've never managed to unlock the skill of copying homework. If it weren't for my ideal, who would rather sit in front of a computer all day than spend time with their adorable son?

In short, if you don't want to read this book, you're more than welcome to go your separate way from me in peace. Coming here to mock me is pointless. Even if you succeed in stabbing me in the heart, what meaning does that have?

As for those who are still willing to read it, please weather the headwind with me.

I know this book will run into difficulties, because its Golden Finger starts out purely "weak."

If it were a System Flow novel, the protagonist wouldn't need to explore or verify anything. For example, if he had an "Yin Release Barrier System," he could simply ask the system whenever he encountered a problem.

That would make for a clean, satisfying read, but I simply didn't want to write a system novel. I supposed it was the stubbornness of an old writer. Pass.

But the price of being willful is that, early on, there will be situations where the protagonist can't accomplish everything in one step. He has to explore the Golden Finger, discover problems, solve them, and so on.

I also didn't want to use something like Mangekyo or Flying Thunder God as the Golden Finger. There are already too many works written that way. They don't need one more from me.

What I want is something fresh and interesting, so why not design a Golden Finger myself? In fanfiction, meeting the original work's established rules without going overboard with derivative creations is highly challenging, but I enjoy that.

However, because of this, the protagonist can't immediately use the Golden Finger to unleash overwhelming power. There has to be a process of development. He can't start out instantly dominating the heavens and earth; he has to begin as a complete weakling.

I was mentally prepared for that when I decided to write this way.

But what I feel guilty about is that I didn't write this "farming" process well. It was boring. For example, the Shinnō-gives-him-a-cheat-device arc was too long and made people skip it. That's the main reason the active readership has been unsatisfactory.

The next step is to solve the slow-start problem and make the plot more enjoyable.

Let's talk about something serious: active readership. At present, this is the only useful metric for securing official recommendations. I once chatted with an esteemed reader who said that he used to wait until a book reached a million words before reading it, then he lowered that to five hundred thousand, and now he waits until two hundred thousand.

I told him he was mistaken. Waiting until two hundred thousand words would still mean waiting for a large number of books to die, almost the same as waiting for five hundred thousand or a million words, because books that die usually never make it to two hundred thousand words. You have no choice but to start waiting from forty thousand words.

He said that really sucked.

But that's how Qidian is now. It's unfriendly to books with many old readers. Old readers like to let books build up, and the books die while they're waiting.

Of course, I need to work harder too. To encourage the esteemed readers to give the book one precious click every day, I'll work hard to add more updates.

The reason new books can't add extra updates during their initial period is that suddenly releasing too many words makes it impossible to arrange recommendations. But books without recommendations don't have that concern.

I've made a big promise, so from now on I'll work hard to update three times a day, until it goes on sale—or until it flops. The update blitz starts at six tonight. The exact number of chapters will depend on the situation. I'll post one chapter every hour and keep going until tomorrow.

The plot ahead is incredibly good. I'm going to shamelessly praise my own work while writing it, and enjoy myself at the same time. Maybe that's the joy of typing away at a keyboard.

If I can manage regular updates later—with a stockpile of chapters—then three updates will probably mean one 2,000-word chapter each in the morning, afternoon, and evening, or two 3,000-word chapters at noon and night. In short, it'll make things convenient for readers in different time slots and help me improve this book's active-readership data. If I don't have a stockpile, I'll strive to reach 6,000 words. That's all for now. So, yeah.