Asia Martusia King investigates an online publisher making authors write 50,000 words a month to receive 6-8% of profits – if their story gets any clicks at all.
It was a sponsored ad on Facebook in 2019. Three buff, half-naked werewolves tore the clothes off a young pregnant woman, eyes blazing with feral passion. Their paws ripped at her bodice, exposing her pendulous bosom. Accompanying the photo was a lengthy chunk of erotica:
The triplet alphas each took turns with Luna during the mating ceremony. Their faces darkened with lust. She was in heat and they could smell it. She couldn’t help but moan…
It was from a page called “Dreame”. I raised an eyebrow (figuratively, because I can’t actually) and kept scrolling, but it wasn’t long until the next sexy werewolf ad appeared. In fact, for the next five years, I received constant sponsored ads about sexy werewolves from different copycat pages: Dreame-Lover, DreameFans, Dreame Wonderland, etcetera. They would last a matter of days before being deleted and then replaced.
Like a lycanthrope’s bite, the stories began to spread. A huge majority of my friends in a similar demographic (female, relatively young, interested in literature) were having their feeds pounded by werewolf ass. Each was unique, but a trend was there: hunky, badly photoshopped wolfmen accompanied by horny, seemingly AI-generated text. The main girl was usually called Luna or Thea, and she was being lusted over by a trio of “alpha” werewolves. Somebody was paying good money to sponsor these advertisements.
Dreame itself is a website which hosts stories. It is run by a company called “Stary Pte Ltd”, whose headquarters, according to their terms and conditions, are situated in a mall in Singapore. Stary operates at least 16 other apps for readers and writers, Dreame being the best known, with 2.1 million users.
Who is the person behind Dreame? Is it a fetish thing? Dreame’s customer service wrote back immediately. “Dreame’s primary founder is a web novelist with a deep passion and extensive experience in online literature. He chooses to engage with the world through the platform of Dreame, embodying his belief in “Enriching lives through creativity,” rather than seeking personal publicity. Our founder prefers to maintain a low profile and is currently unavailable for interviews.”
Determined to uncover his agenda, I joined Dreame fan pages on Facebook, each with a couple million followers. I contacted authors advertising their work. I would ask them questions about Dreame and then their accounts would be mysteriously deleted without trace. Desperate, I signed up to Dreame as a writer (for no cost) and published my first story, “Where, Wolf, Where?”, about a steamy forbidden dalliance in the woods.
In doing so, I discovered that, before you can sign a contract with Dreame, you must publish at least three free chapters of your story, with a minimum of 3,000 words each. Writers on other websites with similar clientele, such as Wattpad, have claimed they have been approached by Dreame staff and propositioned to sign over their story rights. If you get a contract with Dreame, stories that perform well are put behind a paywall, where fans pay to read your story by the chapter.
According to the Dreame contract, which I obtained a copy of, authors are expected to write 50,000 words every month to receive 6-8% of the profits – presuming the story gets any clicks. You must publish a chapter every day, and may not be absent for more than two days a month. Failure to uphold this results in being “fired” from Dreame.
Here are some popular novels that are around 50,000 words in total: The Great Gatsby, Fahrenheit 451, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Of Mice and Men.
“I would gain a dollar a month, sometimes five,” said Amanda, a pseudonymous teen writer contracted to Dreame, in an exclusive interview with The Spinoff. “It takes loads of readership to get any amount of money.” She feels trapped – all of her intellectual property is now owned by Dreame. She begrudgingly continues to write for them, partly for something to do, but mostly to get her name out there. Terminating the contract would cost her $60 and all additional money Dreame spent on advertising her work. Failure to uphold the conditions means Dreame could pursue legal action.
The contract also forbids signed writers to badmouth Dreame. Clause 3.8 states that the author “shall not disparage or denigrate the Licensee orally or in writing, and that neither the Licensor nor anyone acting on the Licensor’s behalf will publish, post, or otherwise release any material in written or electronic format, make speeches, gain interviews, or make public statements which could adversely affect any manner of the conduct of business.” This explains why it was so difficult to find interviewees.
The consumer side of things doesn’t seem to be much better. Readers report getting hooked on a story, only to reach a cliffhanger and have to pay for the next chapter. “I am disgusted that in a very short time I lost $50 for only a few chapters,” wrote Donna, a reviewer. “I could buy a whole book for that. I will be deleting and uninstalling this app forever and warn everyone that it is misleading the public.”
And yet readers are hooked, coming back year after year, spending upwards of $80 to read a werewolf story, many of which seem to be either AI-generated or, based on my perusal of the author profiles, written by teenage girls. Some reviews show users spending upwards of $100 to watch a short reel on Dreame’s video app. Dreame says they have 21 million regular readers.
“Let me be clear, stay away from Stary,” Amanda said. “I can’t say much because it makes me cry. They lie about profit shares when you only gain 6 or 8%. They prey on inexperienced or poor or struggling young writers, at the cheapest cost to their company. They’re poaching desperate authors desperate for recognition, who’ll take anything on offer. They don’t care about the quality of work. They don’t care about you at all.”
Dreame refutes this, saying in a statement that they “deeply care about the quality of work” and carefully select the best submissions for their audience. It is a mutually beneficial relationship between company and author, Dreame says, adding the following:
Understanding the challenges authors face in publishing and promotion, we invest significantly to ensure outstanding works reach appreciative readers. The royalty distribution for authorised works is mainly based on total revenue, with all costs covered by us.
We know that readers ultimately decide the fate of a published work, and few authors achieve both fame and fortune. Nonetheless, we are dedicated to helping aspiring authors overcome obstacles and supporting grassroots authors towards professional development. With our successful experience, we will further enhance our products and services, benefiting more outstanding authors.
According to Dreame and various unvalidated articles floating around the internet, these outstanding authors are earning up to $80,000 a month. The Spinoff could not locate any of these authors. Between $80,000 a month versus Amanda’s $5, a stark disparity is at play, for the same contracted amount of work.
Something which still eluded me was the collaborative werewolf universe. Dreame doesn’t force its writers to churn out stories about horny triplet alphas, but they write about horny triplet alphas anyway. Dreame’s customer service said that the werewolf genre is “among the most popular on Dreame, alongside other cherished genres. The popularity of works is determined by the readers. The broad appeal of the werewolf genre and the ongoing success of related works may be contributing factors.”
Amanda confirmed this. “The target audience is teenage girls, and teenage girls love werewolves. They’re hitting puberty and they’re horny. Teenage girls are some of the biggest drivers of fantasy erotica.”
As to why the characters and plots are often the same, it’s as simple as the formula works. With the amount of writing these authors need to generate every day, it’s easiest to go with what’s tried and true. Luna and her triplet alphas are likely to earn views.
One reader agreed, telling The Spinoff that there’s no agenda as far as the genre proclivities. “It’s young female-skewing readership with a boner for particular flavors of fiction, with the trendsetting and copying that follows. … A condensed social network encourages copycatting, because 15-year-old girls can read about werewolves in perpetuity forever.”
Where there is life in the universe, there are hormonal teenage girls writing sexy werewolf novels. Online writing platforms allow them to be free from the pressures of normality, to express themselves, to simply be horny and weird; a God-given right. Some surely do make a sizable income doing what they love. The question is, is it worth it for those who don’t?