AI Novel Battle Royale: Millions of Readerships Taken Down, End of the "One-Click Generation" Era

The leading platforms have started to regulate AI novels.

On May 22nd, in the "Announcement on Strengthening the Governance of Low - quality Content on Tomato Novels (May)" released by Tomato, it was clearly stated that "the platform strictly prohibits low - quality creation through means such as content dilution and word - stacking... including but not limited to the large - scale generation using AI tools in an abusive manner, which seriously lacks originality and falls into the category of 'poorly made' works." The announcement also revealed that the platform has rejected the signing of 112,700 low - quality books and dealt with more than 40,000 low - quality and violating books.

Not long ago, netizens found that most of the popular novels with millions of readers that were highly promoted by the well - known AI novel writing tool 'Xingyue Writing' have almost all been taken off the shelves, and dozens of novels have been removed.

'Xingyue Writing' is an AI - assisted writing system for online novels independently developed by Zhiyu Technology. It includes functions such as AI writing, expansion and polishing, AI book analysis, idea generation, creative idea generation, outline generation, detailed outline generation, and world - view generation. Previously, Xingyue Writing vigorously promoted its products on multiple platforms, claiming that ordinary people could earn tens of thousands of yuan per month through AI writing.

Over the past year, AI has disrupted the ecosystem of the online novel industry.

For creators, mass - produced AI novels have impacted the new book charts and squeezed out the exposure space of original authors; for readers, a large number of similar AI novels have brought a poor reading experience; for platforms, the overwhelming low - quality AI watered - down novels with similar settings and rampant plagiarism have seriously affected the reputation of online novel platforms.

Previously, Yule Zibenlun also reported on the incident where a gold - medal author earning 800,000 yuan per month was involved in the AI writing controversy. Earlier, Qidian Chinese Network had cracked down on AI novels. This time, Tomato Novel Network has taken down a large number of AI novels on a large scale, including many popular works labeled as 'Tomato Selections' and 'Tomato Blockbusters', which further demonstrates the platform's determination to regulate AI content and clarify the boundaries of AI creation.

1

Many AI novels of Xingyue have been taken off the shelves. Can AI really pave the way to wealth?

Tomato's first shot in regulating AI fell on a novel titled "Reincarnated as a Tree, My Sister Submitted Me to the State at the Beginning". The novel once had over a million readers and was a popular case vigorously promoted by Xingyue on various platforms. Currently, it has been taken off the shelves and banned.

Some people speculated that it was taken off the shelves because it was suspected of plagiarizing the novel "Reincarnated as a Tree" from another platform. However, the official reason for the ban clearly states "presence of low - quality AI expressions".

Subsequently, popular works such as "Survival in the National Fortune: I Rely on Sign - ins for Ten - Thousand - Fold Returns in the Dragon Country" (172,000 readers), "Auctioning Life Span at the Beginning, Even the Saint Emperor Is Crazy to Grab" (79,000 readers), "I Have a Top - Tier Background, Yet You Still Dare to Bully Me" (30,000 readers), and "I'm Already a Quasi - Saint, But My Classmates Haven't Even Reached the Innate Realm" that were key promoted by Xingyue were all taken off the shelves one after another.

Soon, this incident spread in the online novel circle, and videos and articles exposing the inside story of Xingyue Writing appeared.

Xingyue Writing is not produced by a large - scale company and does not have an independent app. It mainly exists in the form of web links.

When the product was just launched in June 2024, its initial team only had 2 people. The founder, "Raptor Crossing the River", was responsible for writing prompts, usage tutorials, and posting on social platforms to attract traffic. The partner, "Lunar God", was in charge of technical development. After adding operational staff, the entire team only had 8 people. In the official WeChat account of 'Xingyue Writing', the founder revealed that the entrepreneurial route of online novel AI writing originated from his experience of trying to pay off debts and make a living by writing novels.

When you open the web page, you will find that each step has a corresponding AI function. From scanning the best - selling lists and analyzing books to creating character settings and writing outlines, with the help of tutorials, users can understand the latest trends in online novels, combine popular elements that the public likes, and quickly start creating novels of tens of thousands of words.

Xingyue Writing has two recharge modes: One is the word - count package. You pay for a certain number of words, and that's how many words of the novel will be generated. The price for 100,000 words is 19 yuan, and 3 million words cost 599 yuan. There are usually discounts ranging from 40% to 60%.

The other is the monthly subscription, which is divided into four price levels: Silver, Gold, Diamond, and Supreme. The original monthly subscription price starts from 198 yuan at the lowest, and the annual subscription price is up to 3,998 yuan. In this type of package, novels can be generated without consuming word - counts during the membership validity period, but using individual functions such as follow - up questions and book analysis will consume word - counts.

To earn revenue on online novel platforms, daily updates are essential. Users of Xingyue Writing inevitably have high expectations for the platform. The founder of Xingyue Writing once revealed to GeekPark that the platform's payment rate exceeds 17%. For an AI product developed by a small team, the profit is quite considerable.

Relying on user paid subscriptions and value - added services, Xingyue Writing had over 20,000 monthly active users within a year of its launch, and the 8 - person founding team earned over one million yuan per month.

Xingyue Writing not only sells tools but also sells'money - making secrets'.

"From a novice in short - story writing to publishing over 60 stories a month, earning over 40,000 yuan in 3 months", "Newcomers can earn 9,000 yuan a month by writing short stories with AI", "Earning 1,600 yuan a day by writing novels with AI"...

Titles of such videos are money - making cases posted by the founder on self - media accounts, which attract potential interested users to private communities and then sell courses for profit.

Xingyue Writing displays examples of online novels created with its assistance on the website's homepage. The variety is rich, and many of them have reached the top of the platform's new book charts. Users can directly click to jump to the original links to read.

For example, the work "Auctioning Life Span at the Beginning, Even the Saint Emperor Is Crazy to Grab" by the author "Evening Wind and Night Moon" has nearly 100,000 readers, once reached the top of the new book chart, earned nearly 100,000 yuan, and was also adapted into a short drama; "Offering Spicy Strips and Getting a Red Glow, My Materialistic Ex - Girlfriend Regrets to Tears" was adapted into an animated series and once reached the top of the dynamic animation chart.

The various promotional cases of Xingyue Writing have painted an extremely beautiful picture for office workers: as long as you know how to use AI for writing, you can become a master of online novels, and earning tens of thousands of yuan a month is not a dream.

However, it is precisely these AI novels that the development team blatantly flaunted, claiming that 'the online novel circle no longer needs masters', that have become the first targets of Tomato Novels' crackdown on AI content.

2

Will the action to regulate AI become a self - rescue for the online novel industry?

On May 19th, after the incident of novels being taken off the shelves fermented, the founder of Xingyue Writing, "Raptor Crossing the River", explained in the member group the reason why the novels were taken off the shelves: "Tomato doesn't want to see authors publicly promoting and endorsing AI."

As a result, not long after, he directly chose to dissolve the group chat.

Before this, the official Xiaohongshu account of Xingyue Writing had also posted the statement that "Tomato doesn't ban AI".

Now, the platform has proved its attitude towards AI novels with actions.

Some people question that the so - called AI blockbusters promoted by Xingyue that occupied the top of the new book charts may just be the result of data - brushing, not real data, and they didn't become popular because of the content of the novels themselves. This is because these online novels all have a common problem: they show hundreds of thousands of readers, but only have dozens of requests for updates per day.

(The founder of Xingyue Writing refuted the rumor under the post questioning 'data - brushing')

The prevalence of low - quality AI novels on online novel platforms has long been criticized. Two years ago, the addition of AI training clauses in the author signing agreements of leading novel platforms caused controversy.

In February this year, Tomato released the "Announcement on Regulating Mass - Produced Low - quality Content on Tomato Novels", stating that it would focus on regulating the illegal behaviors of authors who have been publishing low - quality content for a long time, abusing AI tools to generate works, and updating multiple low - quality works in large quantities on a single day.

Under this announcement, you can see many people commenting and liking. For authors and readers, they have suffered from AI writing for a long time! AI works that ignore content quality have repeatedly occupied the platform's traffic resources, and this phenomenon has long caused dissatisfaction in the online novel circle -

"If this continues, Tomato will be ruined by AI. The first - show novels take away the traffic of normal novels. When bottom - tier authors' incomes are affected, they will be too lazy to write, and then a vicious cycle will occur." "Studios use AI to write novels and robots to brush reading numbers to earn advertising fees. Eventually, both authors and readers will be robots. When advertisers find that there is no actual effective conversion, they will definitely cut their advertising budgets."...