Can novel rankings be trusted?Ranked works have usually been read by more people, so the odds of hitting a dud are lower and they’re useful as a reference. But print rankings can be bought, and brand effects make readers judge by fame alone. Utsudo suggests reading more newcomers and lesser-known works — the works you love may be exactly the ones that need your recommendation.

Translated from Utsudo’s original Chinese column.

The reference value of novel rankings

　　　This is a paradoxical thing. Everyone says newcomers should get a chance to shine, but if you only look at rankings, it’s easy to miss tons of great works — after all, rankings usually only go to tenth place. 

　　But imagine: if it’s your first time on a site, or you just got your allowance and don’t know which book to buy, what do you usually do? Generally your eyes naturally drift to the rankings, or to titles, and after gloriously stepping on a few landmines, you go back to the rankings… ahem.

　　Of course, being ranked doesn’t mean a work won’t disappoint you, but the odds of it blowing up in your face are much lower. What makes the rankings has usually been read by more people or filtered out through votes as the cream of the crop (manipulated ones aside), so objectively, rankings have more reference value.

Bought rankings and brand effects in print

　　With print books, though, it’s really not a sure thing. Many people now choose books based on who wrote them, following whatever everyone else reads — which is quite problematic… Are you choosing based on preconceptions? And buying your way onto print rankings isn’t rare either. Nowadays you can sometimes get onto a book ranking by buying just a dozen or so copies… books are really hard to sell these days QQ

　　Not to mention brand effects — accepting everything from a famous publisher or author wholesale, then getting fed up and declaring Taiwanese light novels dead… I suggest checking out other newcomers, or lesser-known works you also find good, before passing judgment.

　　Veterans who keep producing works certainly show part of their strength, but newcomers who break into this increasingly harsh industry on skill, and authors who keep producing as books get harder and harder to sell, also deserve praise.

　　Of course, if you can’t stand any of it, you’re very welcome to join our ranks and show us what a true masterpiece looks like. Maybe you could even single-handedly change thisenvironment where the strong stay strong and the weak stay weak.

　　Rising up now is really, really hard… 

　　Few readers, many writers, and everyone wants to be famous.

　　But for an industry to be healthy, a middle class is essential.

The problem of authors repeating formulas

　　Sadly, some are already content with the status quo — whatever they write, people will hype it anyway. Flip through their next work and you’ll feel lots of déjà vu, or similar plots and characters recur across different stories, performing all kinds of shadow-clone jutsu…

　　But when too many similar things (characters, plots, premises) show up across one author’s works — occasionally is fine, but if the frequency hits 70%,copying yourself doesn’t count as plagiarism, huh XDD

　　Of course, that doesn’t mean you can never reuse similar elements. With different settings they become different characters. As the saying goes, all writing borrows from what came before, and there’s some truth to it — love stories, however they change, are pretty much the same…

　　Besides, authors usually have character types they like to write, and those types often appear in their works. As long as other things aren’t too similar to earlier works — say, the background, setting, identity and traits change — it’s fine and won’t feel like a crossover.

　　I have my go-to characters too: scheming violent girls, airheaded girls, protagonists who are unlucky all day long. It’s mean, but I really love bullying those hapless-looking protagonists, laughing as I write XDD

　　I also watch out for repetition. Luckily my friends haven’t said I have that problem so far, so I haven’t shot myself in the foot yet, probably (nervous 

Helping good lesser-known works surface

　　Back on topic: rankings are works almost everyone likes, but not necessarily what you like. And the works you like may just happen to be obscure —they really need your help recommending them, so they get a chance to surface and everyone has a “chance” to like them.

　　So,it’s nice to refresh the rankings once in a while, but usually once something gets up there, it’s not easy to come down(if it keeps updating)… I experienced it before: I stayed on the popular chart for months but eventually got knocked off. After all, updates slowed, so I got weeded out QQ 

　　And once you fall off, it’s hard to get back up. What a pain.

　　By the way, sometimes a work makes the rankings not because it’s especially great, but because there’s a strong support squad of friends and family behind it. These kinds ofauthors have strong personal charisma or rallying power — which is also one of the keys for novels to break through today.

　　But what makes people truly want to buy and collect a novel ultimately comes back to the fundamentals — is it good, is it worth it. Personally, rather than spending extra time schmoozing with people, it’s better to build up your skills… otherwise, if you can’t even finish your work and leave it abandoned, how are your eager fans supposed to feel QQ

　　And frankly, lots of people read for free these days. Not commenting is one thing, but they don’t even give a GP, so you can’t tell whether it’s any good. Tsk, how great would it be if we could sense readers’ inner scores and mark them automatically XDD

　　(turns back and stares)

　　So tell me — if you lurk too much, will you drown?

　　Can you tell me ^__^?

FAQ

Further reading (in Chinese)

• Previous: #22 (in Chinese)
• Next: #24 (in Chinese)
• Start from the beginning: #01 — Utsudo’s debut
• Column introduction
• Utsudo’s books

About the author

Utsudo is a Taiwanese light novelist and novelist VTuber with more than ten years in the industry and 40 commercially published print books. Her novel 《遺失的情書》 received a 2022 Ministry of Culture youth creative award. The 《嘿！聽說妳在鬼島當作家》 series records her experiences as a novelist in Taiwan.

📚 More on this topic: The Publishing Industry Today & Trends: Ghost Island Column Guide