32 Mad Fun

{100 followers}

[Good for you, host! That's a great number!]

Oh, look. This system had started bothering me in my dreams as well.

That was a bad sign, wasn't it?

I stood up from the chair and jumped to my bed.

[What? What are you doing?]

"Don't you know? Sleeping in a dream wakes you up in real life."

.

.

.

It wasn't a dream…

I bit my lips as I brought myself back to the computer screen. For real? 100 followers overnight? I had surpassed my months of hard work on the Bite Novel with a single day?

It was hard to believe, but it was harder yet to control my grin.

I clicked on the novel information.

"Aaah… That makes sense."

I leaned back in my chair and a sigh left me.

[3 Stars…]

The overall rating of the book was three stars. When there were just five stars, 3 stars seemed below average. It felt like something not worth your time.

Above half-point was a bad rating.

I checked the number of ratings and the other details, but there was no change in the three star rating. Two people had rated it a one, two had rated it a four, quite a few had rated it exactly three.

And only one person had rated it a five. It sucked that you couldn't see who was rating your books. I would have given this five-starrer a trophy and a personalized thank you note.

"It feels surreal."

There were too many views, too many followers. So what if it was rated bad? As long as there were readers, wasn't it okay?

I was of that thought, and it seemed perfect to me. If things went well, then maybe the others would rate it higher.

With my arms crossed, I looked at the screen again.

What was more weird to me were the views.

How had it gone high enough to attract 100 followers in a single night? Even if this platform was more tailored to novels, it wasn't that populated.

It didn't even exist as a proper platform, it was more of an independent publishing site.

"There must be something going on."

[There is.]

My guru, the system, had decided to bless this lost lamb with its knowledge. I wondered when it would be trusting enough to be useful, but even now, a confidant was more than I could ask for.

Especially since I planned to tell no one that this is what I was doing, and wanted to do in the future.

"So, what is it?"

[What did you do last night?]

"I uploaded all the chapters I had written?"

[Yes, and how did you upload them? You spaced them out by an hour each.]

That was right. The uploading feature was flexible. Before the book was approved, it could still be uploaded and edited but won't show up on the search results.

That changed when it was approved. It would even appear on the lists. The same thing had happened.

"It already had a few-hours long tenure on the 'New Books' list, but every hour made it pop in the 'Recently Updated' list as well?"

[That's right. The exposure from Recently Updated might be minimal, but it is your only option when you are starting out.]

The trick to get more views in a short time was simple. Upload more.

But the same would have failed miserably if I uploaded them all at once. That would be stupid.

"So that's the secret."

[There's more. The cover design is nice, and it perfectly follows the tropes that are popular. System, hunters, the family situation. These are things you see in translated novels, but they are popular everywhere.]

I nodded at the system's words. I disliked playing to the trope, but that was what we had decided.

"In the end, I guess one thing is pretty clear"

[That is?]

"Trash sells."

The system went blank for a second.

And…

[w(ﾟДﾟ)w]

What?

The hell?

[Are you an idiot?]

"What do you mean?"

[Don't you remember yesterday? Host. You wrote the ENTIRE day. You were grinning to yourself all the time while typing out like an idiot.]

"And? The story is still trash."

[You're a fool after all. Check the comments.]

I wanted to complain, but held it in.

At its words, I pouted a little and checked the comment section.

A few of them were thanks for the chapters, there were a couple commenters pointing out the mistakes I had made in my text.

But one of them was a little longer than the rest.

{SymbolKey77: This is fun! This is the kind of story I was looking for! All these stories had gotten too pretentious and boring, but this one is different. The writing and story leaves some to be desired, but there is fun oozing out of every chapter. I love it. Thank you! More please!]

A smile spread on my lips.

"That…"

Fun.

Huh? That was right. The system had laid it out in front of me, but I had missed it.

[Listen well, host. No matter how much you advertise or get on the top lists, no matter how many chapters you release at once, none of it will work unless your writing itself is fun.]

"Is that so…?"

[And you know what is the best way to make a book fun?]

I knew this one.

"It is to have fun writing it?"

[You got it.]

I rolled up my sleeves and wiped my mouth. With a few clicks, the docs had opened up again with the next page ready to roll.

"Let's start having some fun then!"

***

[A/N: We're back! The set up of a new story on my other accounts took a while, but it seems to be going well! Sorry for the disappearance.

We are back to daily updates. And I have another good news...

drum roll please...

The book has been offered a contract by Webnovel! Thank you very much for all the support! It's all thanks to you guys! Please keep dropping those 1 stars to make it even better. 

For anyone worried, just because we are contracted, the book won't be locked behind a paywall so soon. Not atleast till we have a sizeable number of chapters! Thank you as always.]