His goal was very clear: if he wanted to make it in the web novel industry, he had to understand the rules of the game.

For example, on Fengyun Chinese Web, how to sign a contract, how to judge a book’s performance, how to climb the rankings—these all needed to be figured out.

Sharpening the axe won’t delay the job of chopping wood. He used to be just a reader, only knowing the basics of these rules. Obviously, now he needed to learn much more.

The quality of Doupo Cangqiong was absolutely unquestionable—on this point, David Clark had no doubts.

And the first chapter written by Grace Foster also read very smoothly overall, with a strong sense of anticipation. David Clark was very sure that once this book was written, it would definitely become a big hit. But the problem was, just waiting around wouldn’t work. Dreaming of posting ten or twenty thousand words and then getting thousands of favorites and tens of thousands of recommendation votes, soaring up the rankings—that was pure fantasy. Even a good book needed exposure.

“Tianyi War God, author Wendao.” This time, David Clark opened the book that was number one on the monthly ticket rankings again, looking at the various stats—Clicks: 5,236,548; Member weekly clicks: 6,532; Recommendation votes: 653,489; Total word count: 3,678,954.

These numbers… aren’t that high. Is this really the top-ranked book on the site?

He scrolled down with the mouse and quickly reached the book review section. David Clark began to quickly browse the posts—

“Brothers, this month our Dao Meng must take first place!”

“Of course! Wendao’s book—do you even need to ask? It has to be number one!”

“Exactly, the other books have no competitiveness at all, there’s just no contest!”

“Yeah, I actually hope a good book comes along to compete with us, otherwise taking first every month is just too boring…”

Looking at the posts, David Clark muttered in confusion, “Is this book’s performance really that strong? But it seems like these numbers can’t compare at all to those hit books from my previous life!”

He thought for a moment, then started checking the favorite count for this book.

He quickly found it—Tianyi War God, Favorites: 105,498.

“The number one book only has a hundred thousand favorites?” David Clark’s eyes widened.

He knew that in his previous life, those hugely popular books easily had hundreds of thousands of favorites. Doupo Cangqiong had always firmly held the top spot on the favorites ranking, with a whopping 1.3 million!

“Let’s check the favorites ranking!” David Clark opened the favorites ranking directly, and when he saw the numbers, he took a deep breath.

“Tianyi War God,” author Wendao, Favorites: 105,498.

“Blood Sea Heavenly Dao,” author Wendao, Favorites: 89,562.

“Proud Sword Chronicle,” author Brian Miller, Favorites: 87,564…

David Clark: “No wonder this Brian Miller said he wanted to reach the pinnacle—this guy really does have some skill…” He kept reading.

“Legend of Wind and Cloud,” author Evan Reed, Favorites: 82,139.

“Great Battle God,” author Better Tomorrow, Favorites: 78,543.

…

“So in this world, a hundred thousand favorites is already the highest?” David Clark stroked his chin and began to carefully examine the ranking data.

Overall, it seemed that the novel stats in this world were much lower than he’d imagined. Among the four major new book rankings, the number one on the signed new book list, “Road of Terror,” author Evan Reed, had a total index of 132,854, total clicks: 37,563, member weekly clicks: 14,224, total recommendations: 18,636, total word count: 140,239, favorites: 10,594.

He’d already seen this Evan Reed on the favorites ranking before—should be one of the site’s veteran top authors—but even the new book’s stats didn’t seem that high.

As for the other three new book rankings: the number one on the public author new book list had a total index of just over 20,000; the number one on the new author signed new book list had a total index of 65,000; and the number one on the new author new book list had only 12,000—this was already the data as of Friday.

“The index is this low?” David Clark frowned, then looked up the index calculation formula and quickly found it: “The index formula is still member clicks x5 + recommendation votes x5 + favorites x2, same as the old Qidian. So, it shouldn’t be that hard to climb the rankings…”

Opportunity—this was an opportunity!

David Clark was very sure that as long as he could get on the rankings, he’d be halfway to success!

Chapter 12: Extremely Unlucky

Now that the basic data was clear, the next step was to determine the specific steps for releasing a book.

In his previous life, David Clark had communicated with some authors, and the process of releasing a book was roughly: first upload chapters, then update steadily; if the quality was good, you’d receive a short message from the editor inviting you to sign a contract, then contact the editor, sign, get recommended, and if the results were good, after more than 200,000 words you could go on sale.

But now, holding the golden mountain that was Doupo Cangqiong, David Clark’s plans were definitely not that simple.

Climb the rankings—he had to climb the rankings!

“Climbing the rankings is all about clicks and recommendations. Obviously, a book with just ten or twenty thousand words can’t possibly attract that many readers.” David Clark narrowed his eyes. He knew web novels well—a new author’s first book, no matter how good the title and synopsis, there just wouldn’t be that many readers willing to click in.

So, if you didn’t come up with other ways before signing during the new book period, it would be extremely difficult to climb the rankings.