Don’t Avoid Boycotting Lezhin Out of Fear for the Authors’ Livelihood
I’ve seen a lot of posts here on Tumblr and elsewhere, where caring readers voice their concerns about their favorite creators being too negatively impacted if Lezhin is boycotted. This is not a baseless concern, as Lezhin’s creators do make royalties on their sales. However, please remember that these royalties are much lower than is typical for the webtoon industry. In addition, Lezhin has not been paying their authors the correct percentages and coming through on their side of their publishing contracts. They justify it all with their minimum guarantee.
So, remember that authors will always get that minimum guarantee, and that their sales royalties are dismally low. Based on these facts, my opinion that the best way to support our beloved authors is boycotting Lezhin still stands. If you have coins, be sure to spend them all, so that authors can collect the profits from that, even if they are low. But then don’t buy any more coins if you want the working conditions to change. Lezhin sure as hell isn’t going to do better for their creators out of the goodness of their hearts. I have yet to see a statement from them apologizing for collecting sizable late fees from their creator with cancer, or acknowledging how wrong that was. They should NOT get away with this!!!!
Another thing to remember is that even if authors lost contracts due to the boycott, if we take our money and spend it on webtoon sites that are good to their creators, that gives the better companies room to grow and hire Lezhin’s former authors--and to give them a career and a life significantly better than they could have with Lezhin.
Money talks. Will Lezhin let their company burn, or will they finally step up and clean up their act? Only time will tell. My loyalty will always lie with the authors. Godspeed!
