My Beef with Reading Apps
Of late, I have come across ads on Facebook promoting novels from reading apps with synopsis of the novels. I read one of those synopsis and was captivated by the novel to the point that I clicked through to the app to continue reading it. The novel was advertised as a free read. I thought the whole novel was available on the app for free without me having to do anything else. However, I was mistaken. It was only when I got into the app that I realized that I had to perform tasks to earn bonuses in order to read chapters. Well, the app cannot be faulted for my misunderstanding, since they don’t take cash from me for performing those tasks. So, what is my problem with these apps. Do I really expect them to make their stories available to the public absolutely free? Certainly not. My problem is that they bait people into spending money they would otherwise not have spent. They play a psychological game with their readers, particularly those who find it difficult to stop reading a book they like once they start.
High Cost of Reading on Reading Apps
The cost of reading on these reading apps is mind-blowing. I’m currently reading two novels, one on My Fiction (formerly Kiss) app and the other on Webfic app. On My Fiction (formerly Kiss) app, it costs 8 coins or bonuses (they have two in-app currencies, coins and bonuses, which have the same value) to read a chapter. On the other hand, it costs 18 coins or bonuses to read a chapter on Webfic app. Bonuses can be earned by performing tasks or upon purchase of a coin package. Since I’ve only ever used bonuses, I’ll stick to bonuses. The most valuable package on My Fiction (formerly Kiss) app costs ghc 920 for 1400 coins and bonuses. This amount of coins and bonuses will enable you to read only 175 chapters. That’s a cost of ghc 5.26 per chapter. You must be aware that most of the books have thousands of chapters. For a book with just 1000 chapters, it would cost ghc 5260 to read.
The owners of Webfic app are much more generous in comparison but still way on the higher side compared to buying paper-bound books. Their most valuable package costs ghc 290 for 7500 coins and bonuses. This amount of coins and bonuses will enable you to read about 416 chapters. That’s a cost of ghc 0.70 per chapter. Just as with My Fiction (formerly Kiss) app, most of the books have thousands of chapters. For a book with just 1000 chapters, it would cost ghc 700 to read. Locally available books on Jumia marketplace are going for an average of around ghc 70.
Length of Chapters on Reading Apps
The chapters of novels on these reading apps are rather very short. Combing around the web, it appears to be a consensus that the average length of a novel chapter is around 3000 words. I took a sample of 10 chapters of a novel from Webfic app and found a minimum of 529 and a maximum of 1033 words per chapter, giving an average of 735 words per chapter. Their chapters are just about a quarter of the size of regular paper-bound novels.
Abandoning of Novels by Authors on Reading Apps
These reading apps publish uncompleted novels while the authors continue to update them. These are referred to as ongoing novels. It is not uncommon for novels to be abandoned by the authors, and subsequently removed entirely from the app. You can gather this information by going through comments in the app or the reviews of these apps on App Store or Play Store. Irrespective of whether people were reading these novels for free or had paid money to unlock chapters in these novels, their appetites are left hanging.
Length of Ads on Reading Apps
To earn bonuses on these reading apps, one has to perform tasks. Those who do not have the money or do not want to spend money on novels in these reading apps can only rely on these tasks to earn bonuses in order to read chapters. Most of the tasks involve watching ads (video or text). Some ads are as short as 5 s, but other ads are so extremely and annoyingly long. Most ads are about 30 s long, but some are even longer. Some, as long as they are, even have a countdown timer (mostly 12 s) after the ad, followed by a static page for the ad that takes about 3 s to load. At the end of the day, the reader has to perform 3 clicking/tapping actions to close these ad pages. There are also many instances where the reader has to watch two 15-s ads in succession before being rewarded with the bonuses. One usually has to watch ads which range in length from 5 s to over 45 s. On My Fiction (formerly Kiss) app, this will usually give you only 1 bonus. For 8 bonuses to read just 1 chapter, it means that one would have to watch ads anywhere from 40 s to over 6 min. Webfic is more generous, as you can usually get to read one chapter by watching two to three ads, that is 10 s to about 2 min 15 s.
Reading Apps Have Ads Without Sound Control
I often watch these ads while doing other things, like listening to music or radio on my phone, due to the length of the ads, so I usually mute the sound of the ads as soon as they pop up. However, annoyingly, there are some ads that don’t have sound muting control. These are usually the longest ads too. Once these ads pop up, I have to stop all the other things I was doing with the sound until the ads end.
Chapters Are Released Slowly
These reading apps don’t release all the chapters of the novels at once. They release a few chapters a day, like they do with TV drama shows. Those who want to quickly finish their books and move on to other things will be disappointed. My Fiction (formerly Kiss) app releases 10 chapters a day for the Novel I’m reading, while Webfic app releases 7 chapters a day for theirs.
Are All Reading Apps Bad?
Apart from the two reading apps I have referenced in this post, I have briefly interacted with a few other reading apps, and they share similar characteristics with these two. But as can be seen with the two reading apps referenced in this post, there are differences even among the reading apps, You can see that it is way cheaper to read on Webfic app than on My Fiction (formerly Kiss) app. There’s one that I’ve found that operates on a slightly different model. The stories are free to read. They only place banner ads after every few pages, which you can easily swipe past. You only need to watch ads if you want to listen to the audio of the story. Even then, they’re so generous that watching one ad grants you 20 min of listening time. You may want to check out NovelFlow app.
Even though I don’t use Amazon kindle, my fellow readers have often used it as a yardstick in their comments. They claim that the money they spend to watch one book on those reading apps could land them several complete books on kindle. I suggest you check out kindle as well if you wish to spend less money while enjoying novels.
Conclusion
It is very expensive to read novels on most reading apps. You can only read novels for free by performing tasks, mostly watching ads. You can usually earn enough rewards from ads to read only a few chapters a day. Most of the ads are annoyingly long and give very little rewards. However, there are a few reading apps around that aren’t so expensive to read on. The two that I have discovered so far are NovelFlow and Amazon kindle.
Tip
If you’re the kind who cannot stop reading a captivating story, once you find the synopsis of a novel on social media, click through to the full story on the reading app. Once there, investigate how much it would cost you, in terms of money or time, to read the entire novel. If you’re satisfied, you go ahead to read the novel, otherwise, you might find yourself throwing away huge amounts of cash or getting frustrated. In addition, I suggest you read only completed novels, otherwise the author may abandon the novel on you, or you may find yourself frustrated, anxiously waiting for chapters to be released