Very few people know, despite the fact that I love recounting this story left and right.
I started writing in Italian because, shock, I'm Italian. And I first got interested in web novels during November 2015. Then, in February 2016, I opened a website that translated web novels from English and Chinese to Italian. It's sort of a wuxiaworld/royalroad thing. The first iteration of RR, at least.
In August 2016 I started writing my first web novel, Il Demone Contro il Cielo (The Demon Against the Heavens), heavily influenced by Chinese and Korean web novels. Curiosity: to this day, I don't think I have read a Japanese novel. Lots of mangas, yes. But never a novel.
Around October 2017 I had a Patreon with a mix-match of my translations and writings. Believe it or not, viewership-wise, The Demon Against the Heaven is in the top three most read web novels in Italy. Bonkers. But it's also a smaller market and a market I could influence, being the first to open a website like that and the owner of said website.
Around November 2017, that Patreon started making almost 1000$ per month. It was insane. In Italy, with the infinitesimally small audience I had, I was making almost a grand per month. How about that?
And I'll tell you more, the growth was staggering. I was getting praises left and right for my stuff. People loved what I was doing. Basically, if you wanted to know web novels in Italy, you had to read my stuff. I felt like a gangster, I swear. I also bought a desktop computer with my own money around that time. I finally could afford one without having to beg my parents. I was already attending Med School, in fact, and broke af.
Now, what do you suppose I did around then?
Did I start writing even more? Did I understand that I could have made a career out of it if I had left my studies behind even for a few months?
I burned out.
I lost it.
I don't know what the hell happened to me. I became super-anxious and also had some family conflicts around that time. So, between my family stuff and this newfound 'success,' I caved. I told my Patrons, days before reaching a round $1.000, that I was going to scale down. That I needed to focus on my studies. That I simply couldn't keep up. And I was barely writing 4 chapters per week (around 2k words each) and translating around the same amount. And I was fast, already. It didn't take me too long. I was simply an idiot. I got spooked. I got anxious. I didn't know how any tax stuff worked. I didn't want to go to an accountant. I didn't want to take responsibilities. I’ll better catalog the amount of shit that went through my head in the future.
But the point is that what happened to me I see happening to many people on RR. They shoot up the rankings, start making bank, but few of them capitalize on the opportunities. Some simply stop writing; others scale down instead of scaling up. And if you don’t stay consistent, if you don’t manage your life and your novel, pacing them and keeping them in top shape, you are done.
As a reference, I think that one writer/novel that stayed incredibly consistent despite the hate and criticism is Primal Hunter
If you are interested in this, you probably want to read I almost became a big shot in 2017, in Italy.
The problems with going pro as a web novel writer are managing expectations, deadlines, your relationship with readers, and many other things. Many burn out to reach success, sprinting to the first milestone--making enough money to live comfortably. However, once they are there, they will realize that it takes much more to be a professional writer, that it's not just about reaching the threshold of money, and that you can fall down from that pretty quickly. In fact, I almost became a big shot in 2017, in Italy; but that didn't pan out.