Why the web novel are conquering the new gen?

In a generation where dopamine is just one click away and we have things as addictive as social media, videos, games, and parties, literature is becoming less and less attractive to young people.

Because of these factors, the web novel format works extremely well.

Despite existing since the 90s, the web novel format had its boom in the 2000s in Asia, with China and South Korea being the main authors and consumers of these works.

Web novels took a few more years to become popular in the West, and when they did, it was a massive boom.

Since 2013, web novels have experienced exponential growth worldwide, bringing with them several not-so-well-known genres, such as LitRPG and Xianxia—also known as cultivation novels.

After 2017, thanks to platforms like Royal Road, Tapas, Webnovel, and Wattpad, this format fully consolidated itself, becoming very popular among both authors and readers.

However, despite its great growth and transformation over the years, there is still something that remains an obstacle for this format: quality.

The biggest problem web novel apps have is quality. Since anyone can publish their work without going through filters like those in traditional literature, the overall quality of the works tends to be rather poor.

Because of this, platforms are flooded with clichéd, soulless stories.

Although there are still very good works among all the bad ones, a very well-known example is Lord of the Mysteries, which was praised for its world-building, story, and characters.

Another more recent example is Shadow Slave, which has in fact become the most popular web novel at the moment, attracting millions of readers and being the number one work on Webnovel for several consecutive years.

Every day, more and more web novel readers appear—not only people who had never read before, but also readers of more traditional works.

Now, why is it that despite the poor quality of most works, so many people are drawn to this niche?

The answer comes in parts, but the first and main one is serialization.

Just like TV series, manga, and comics, web novels are usually serialized, meaning their chapters are published little by little and are not complete books, as is traditionally done.

This produces several things, the first being the community.

Traditional books are popular and do have much larger communities, yes, that’s true, but web novels have other advantages.

Since the story is released gradually, it has much more room to generate anticipation. Unlike a traditional book, where the boom happens at release and then slowly fades, the web novel community does the opposite—it grows over time.

This keeps the story alive, which in turn makes fans feel increasingly connected to the work, creating theories, fanfics, fan art, discussing the latest chapters, and so on.

If something defines our generation, it is dopamine and addiction to different things, which is why people are more attracted to constant updates and cliffhangers. Once a chapter is finished, they only have to wait one more day for the next one.

This ends up becoming a habit, checking every day at the same time to see if the work has been updated, and once they finish one, they move on to another.

The most decisive factor for me is digitalization.

Of course, you can read traditional books on the internet, but you have to do an exhaustive search to find them in your language, and even then, they are often poorly translated.

Web novels, on the other hand, are usually on the same platforms as always, just one click away.

They also have the advantage of being cheaper. Using Shadow Slave as an example again, buying all chapters up to volume 10—which would be approximately 3,000,000 words—would cost around 500 dollars.

This cost is actually reduced through free reading events, fast passes, points, discount vouchers, and so on.

If you read 10 chapters a day, with at least three unlocked using fast passes, you would reach volume 10 spending at least 20,405 coins, which would be around 300 dollars. In reality, with coin bonuses, events, and free reading days, it would end up being much less.

Adding all these factors together—the format, the community, the price, digitalization, and the characteristics of our generation—makes web novels very popular despite their clear shortcomings.

In my opinion, web novels still have a long way to grow and will become the new focus of literature in the future, but they should not be the only one.

They should cooperate with traditional books, with web novels providing exposure and traditional books serving as final or more polished versions of the works.

If you’ve never read web novels, you should give them a chance—at least the best ones.