Rejected for silly reasons

So, I just got back a story, saying it was rejected for the following reasons:

- Were there URL links, site addresses, or other advertisements within the story?
- While we welcome authors to publish shorter fiction on Literotica while promoting ebooks or other offsite projects on their profile page, out of respect for reader's feelings, we would rather not publish partial works or excerpts as "teasers".

Here's the problem: The story in question is an unofficial "episode" in my artist friend's universe. It takes place in their main storyline, and includes references to episodes from that storyline. Said friend is not on this site, and I don't expect people to Google their name to find the stories in question. So I put in the author's note "Please visit [so and so's website] and read their free story to get context." This was recommended to me by both of the editors I worked with (who are not VEs here).

I'm not promoting someone else's e-book, I'm merely giving the readers the means to properly parse certain parts of the story. Nor is it a "partial work" or "excerpt," for it's an unofficial, non-canon episode that relies on someone having some knowledge of the series. If I didn't provide the artist's site as a link, people would get confused at key points because they didn't read the previous episodes.

How do I resolve this so that people won't dump on my story? I don't trust readers to actually Google the artist to get the right information. Rewriting the story to add all the necessary context would be impossible, and removing the references to prior episodes would kill the flavor and flow of the story.

If it’s your friends story?
Then surely you’ve no right to publish it as yours!
That might just be your issue here.

The big problem with external links is that they can change without notice.

Suppose you put up a story with links to your friend's site, and Laurel checks those links and confirms that they're all A-OK, nothing to object to. So she okays the story and it gets posted here. All good...

Then your friend decides to market their story after all, so the free site that Laurel okayed is now a pay site. Or, your friend lets their site registration lapse, and some asshole snaps it up and turns it into a crappy pay-porn site full of viruses. There's no way for Laurel to know that the link from her site has now turned into something different to what she approved.

If you're posting something that doesn't provide enough context to be read on its own, that's pretty much the definition of a "partial work", regardless of whether the rest of the work was written by a different person. I can understand why it'd be frustrating, but Literotica has had problems with people trying to use it as free advertising, which is presumably why the rule exists.

Rules aside, I suspect most readers here aren't going to be very keen on a story that starts with "please go read all these other stories for context". Perhaps it'd work better to ask your friend if they're willing to host it on their site? That way you're more likely to find readers who already know the setting and are interested in reading more about it.

It's entirely possible that stating "This is fanfic of ( Story Name )" is too much, even without a direct link to a story on another site — especially if the story is an erotic story on a different site.

If your story relies on prior knowledge of that other story, there's really no chance you're going to be able to post it here. You could completely omit the references and possibly get it through the queue, but if it truly relies on the other work, all you're going to do is confuse/piss off readers, which is going to result in low scores and nasty commentary.

Bramblethorn has about the best solution you're going to come up with. Ask your friend if it can be posted there as fanfiction. If the problem is that the original story isn't erotic in nature and your friend doesn't want to post pr0n, then you're up a crik, I'm afraid. I can't think of a single erotic story site that allows outside linking to other sites as you want to do.

Leading with the chin by saying the submission was rejected for silly reasons isn't likely to get you very far. It was rejected for the reasons, which are Web site policy, that you confirm by describing what you submitted.

Bramblethorn said:

The big problem with external links is that they can change without notice.
.....

Click to expand...

I hope you DO understand that it's not the real reason they forbid links here?

While this explanation is reasonable, the real reason is that they don't want to help you promote yourself elsewhere.
Profile? Next to no one will look at it or know that you write other stories on other sites.
Literotica doesn't really want to promote other sites, so they ban links in stories.
Remember, Literotica is earning revenue off of your free contributions. They are not interested in you writing elsewhere, or in readers reading elsewhere.

and yes, website policy, Laurel's rules, take it or leave it, yada-yada. Doesn't make it less of a dick move though.

Nezhul said:

I hope you DO understand that it's not the real reason they forbid links here?

and yes, website policy, Laurel's rules, take it or leave it, yada-yada. Doesn't make it less of a dick move though.

Click to expand...

Since when is it a dick move for a site owner to list a few policies (and let's face it, there aren't many) and then police them?

It's perfectly reasonable for someone running a private business to say, "here's a few rules that govern the service I provide you (for free), could you please adhere to them?"
I
It's really not hard to understand why the owner discourages direct links and cross-marketing in stories. Besides, how do you know the reason stated by Bramblethorn isn't the real reason? I've seen it spruiked as such since I joined Lit.

Nezhul said:

I hope you DO understand that it's not the real reason they forbid links here?

While this explanation is reasonable, the real reason is that they don't want to help you promote yourself elsewhere.

Click to expand...

That's certainly a reason for the Lit policy. But given that the OP said they weren't trying to promote their friend's e-book, I wanted to point out that even without the issue of promotion, external links are still problematic.

If that was the be-all, end-all reason, then posting fake urls which do not go anywhere would be fine.

It isn't. Stories with fake URLs ( not even anchored with HTML ) are routinely rejected as well.

The issue of where an address could lead in the future is very much part of why this isn't allowed.

Nezhul said:

I hope you DO understand that it's not the real reason they forbid links here?

While this explanation is reasonable, the real reason is that they don't want to help you promote yourself elsewhere.
Profile? Next to no one will look at it or know that you write other stories on other sites.
Literotica doesn't really want to promote other sites, so they ban links in stories.
Remember, Literotica is earning revenue off of your free contributions. They are not interested in you writing elsewhere, or in readers reading elsewhere.

and yes, website policy, Laurel's rules, take it or leave it, yada-yada. Doesn't make it less of a dick move though.

Click to expand...

Bramblethorn said:

That's certainly a reason for the Lit policy. But given that the OP said they weren't trying to promote their friend's e-book, I wanted to point out that even without the issue of promotion, external links are still problematic.

Click to expand...

Might note that either saying or genuinely thinking you're not promoting another site in a "go there for the full story, not here" way doesn't mean that's not the effect given to someone reading the material. As the circumstance is described by the OP, this could easily be seen as a "go there for the full story, not here" teaser. Seemed an obvious reject to me.

sr71plt said:

Might note that either saying or genuinely thinking you're not promoting another site in a "go there for the full story, not here" way doesn't mean that's not the effect given to someone reading the material. As the circumstance is described by the OP, this could easily be seen as a "go there for the full story, not here" teaser. Seemed an obvious reject to me.

Click to expand...

This is also true.

...........

??????

I've not found any of my stories were rejected,
apart from American spellings.

Only a scan is being given to the submissions (with 60 plus stories posting every day of the year by one editor, more should not be expected), so assuming something is there that isn't is inevitable from time to time. Nearly all of my few rejections have been because something was thought to be there that wasn't and simply pointing out it wasn't there was enough to get it posted as written. (The one exception was putting in a fake URL to find that even fake ones aren't permitted. No big deal.)

It's unfortunate that such bounce backs are worded as rejections rather than queries since the editor is just guessing about what might be there rather than knowing, but, in most cases, the issue can be worked out politely.

There's only one person accepting/rejecting any submission here. I don't see where that has anything to do with anyone else on the Web site.

It's website.

bigmane said:

It's website.

Click to expand...

Not in U.S. style, no. It's in Webster's, eleventh collegiate edition, as "Web site." Feel free to look it up--preferably before you decide to correct someone.

Why are you doing this?

I never responded to this, so, I ought to explain some things...

For one thing, it's my take on his work, not replicating his work on here. It's technically a fanfic (I fucking hate that word). However, it's set in his universe, which I don't expect people to know. Contextually, it would be difficult to explain some elements of the story without referencing prior "official" episodes.

For another, he can't post his work on here. It's mixed media: 3D art with text. Last I checked, this is a text-only site.

So, I'm kind of stuck here. I want to post this, but it needs some context to make sense, and I think a link wouldn't be a problem (his work is free, and that's very unlikely to change anytime in the next few years).

sr71plt said:

Not in U.S. style, no. It's in Webster's, eleventh collegiate edition, as "Web site." Feel free to look it up--preferably before you decide to correct someone.

Why are you doing this?

Click to expand...

Actually, most U.S. stylebooks (AP and CMOS in particular) declare "website" to be one word, no capitalization. Dictionaries do not dictate style preferences. In fact, website is now acceptable in Webster's as well.

aguinness said:

For another, he can't post his work on here. It's mixed media: 3D art with text. Last I checked, this is a text-only site.

Click to expand...

Not true. You can post text with illustrations - instructions linked below. It's not a highly read category though.

https://www.literotica.com/faq/05238710.shtml#06028542

So, I'm kind of stuck here. I want to post this, but it needs some context to make sense, and I think a link wouldn't be a problem (his work is free, and that's very unlikely to change anytime in the next few years).

Click to expand...

As stated in the posts above, the link IS the problem.

Accept that the link IS the fundamental reason for the story rejection, and either provide all of the necessary context in your story, OR resubmit it with a dumb link that an interested reader can copy into a browser and edit (ie blah blah blah dot com; not blah blah blah .com).

aguinness said:

Actually, most U.S. stylebooks (AP and CMOS in particular) declare "website" to be one word, no capitalization. Dictionaries do not dictate style preferences. In fact, website is now acceptable in Webster's as well.

Click to expand...

ACTUALLY, in U.S. publishing, using the premier publishing authority, the Chicago Manual of Style, dictionaries DO dictate style preferences and the dictionaries of preference are Webster's Third New International Dictionary and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. (Chicago Manual of Style, 7.1; the CMS does not claim itself as a spelling authority over the dictionaries it cites). And "Web site," IN FACT, is the only spelling choice in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. Whether or not someone wants to use another spelling, bigmane was both wrong and rude to claim to correct my authoritatively correct spelling (in U.S. publishing) on this thread.

The thread is only going off into this realm for nastiness sake, though. The leading-with-the-chin "silly rejection" claim was already answered and this is irrelevant to it. Starting off with a chip on your shoulder isn't going to gain points for you. Might try reading the guidelines the next time yourself so they don't have to be explained to you.

RejectReality said:

If that was the be-all, end-all reason, then posting fake urls which do not go anywhere would be fine.

It isn't. Stories with fake URLs ( not even anchored with HTML ) are routinely rejected as well.

The issue of where an address could lead in the future is very much part of why this isn't allowed.

Click to expand...

So does this mean that a fake email address is also prohibited? I've got a story (currently being edited) where I've included one, but this could easily be worked around. And after reading the URL issues, I probably will - don't want some hapless innocent woman getting a flood of emails by clueless readers thinking they could contact a fictional character. Due to the mid-1990s time frame, however, I did want to reveal the character is on Prodidgy for a touch of Internet nostalgia .

KenNicottii said:

So does this mean that a fake email address is also prohibited?

Click to expand...

Yes. I submitted a story where the hook of the story was the fake URL, one that didn't come up with anything on the Internet. The story was rejected and I had to completely rewrite it.

Saying the character is on Prodigy or any other service shouldn't be a problem. Just don't say Progidy.com Only reference the name of the service, as you would Facebook, or Compuserve, or AOL. Even mentioning an internet handle shouldn't be a problem. I've done both numerous times.

You just don't want to use the name@service convention of an email.

KenNicottii said:

So does this mean that a fake email address is also prohibited? I've got a story (currently being edited) where I've included one, but this could easily be worked around. And after reading the URL issues, I probably will - don't want some hapless innocent woman getting a flood of emails by clueless readers thinking they could contact a fictional character. Due to the mid-1990s time frame, however, I did want to reveal the character is on Prodidgy for a touch of Internet nostalgia .

Click to expand...

E-mail

Seems to me that if you want to cite an e-mail address in a story, you have to phrase it so it's not obviously an e-mail address, with at least enough information for someone to put the bits together, something like "she used an old aol.com email she'd had years ago and never cancelled, 'nancylee'". It does seem, though, that given how easy it is to get a real email address, you should add it to your stable before you put it in a story so some poor soul isn't inundated with strange requests from unknown people who read stories on the internet. By the way, having done this, no one at all has ever contacted the email.