Looking for an editor? Looking to do any editing? Check in here first!

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KillerMuffin

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Hello, welcome to the Editor's Forum. I'm Muffin, your host for the evening. Hooking up with an editor or a writer is a little confusing, sometimes. That's where I come in. My job here is to answer your questions and help you find what you're looking for: an editing situation.

The Editor's Forum is a place where editors and writers looking for witers and editors can get together and discuss things of an editing nature. Can you talk about other things here? Of course! We're people, after all, and people talk. Just keep in mind that this isn't a forum simply for socialization, it's for editing.

How do you find a volunteer editor?

There are two things that Literotica can do to help you find someone to help you with your story. First, there is the forum, where you're at now. The other is through the Volunteer Editor's Program Page.

As you've seen, writers looking for an editor start threads with a request for an editor. It's a quick way to hook up with someone interested. A little farther down in this post, I'll have some pointers on starting an editor solicitation thread for you. The forum is a great place for editors to "shop" for a writer to edit.

The other way is to shop for an editor yourself. The Volunteer Editor's Program Page (found here) has a listing of Volunteer Editors, their qualifications, and what they're interested in.

If you're a writer, check out the tutorial on how to use the Volunteer Editor's Program here.

How do I post a thread here to solicit an editor?

First, you have to have an account with Literotica. If you already have an account with the main part of the site, your author handle and password are the same as the Bulletin Board. The chat room is run from a different server and so is the free email, so you'll have to register either with the Bulletin Board (you can do so here) or with the main part of the site (you can do so here). Once you've registered, log in!

In the forum, start a new thread. There's a button that says "New Thread" at the top and bottom of the forum. The subject is what will appear on the main editor's forum page. You'll want to come up with something that's descriptive so a browsing editor can find you.

When you write your post, think about specifics. You don't want to waste your time or an editor's time. If you write gay male stories, you don't want to engage an editor that doesn't edit gay male stories. So think a little about what yuo're looking for.

What sort of stories do you write? If you have favorite categories, what are they? What sort of experience do you have? What kind of help are you looking for? Editors do everything from simple proofreading to helping an author completely re-write the story.

If you have stories posted, you can include a link to your author page so an editor can browse your completed work to see if you're compatible. It's easy. Open up another browser window and go to your author's page. Copy the address from the address bar and then paste it into your post. vBulletin will automatically turn your URL into a link. If you want to get fancy, you can find an FAQ on using vBulletin code here.

If you have a specific story you want help with, do not post the whole thing. NOTE: Do not post more than a couple of paragraphs.

Lastly, you probably should not post an email address in the body of your post. UPDATE: [personal info prohibited per our forum guidelines] There are programs out there (known as bots) that do nothing but crawl around the Internet looking for posted email addresses. vBulletin will automatically give you an option for someone to contact you personally: the Private Message system. If you look at the end of this post you'll see the button "PM". If you click that button you can send me a private message. You can check to see if this option have been enabled in your own account by looking at one of your own posts or by going to the Edit Options Page in your User CP (found here).

How do I become an editor?

Stop by the How to be an editor page found here. A word of advice, when you craft your editor's profile, proofread it. You might not be taken seriously if you don't.

I have a few questions about submissions

And I have a few answers for you! First, check out Lit's FAQ page. Most of the questions you have are answered there. Look there first! Laurel and Manu have been pretty thorough about answering questions.

How come my story seems to take a lot longer than the FAQ said it would?

If you emailed the story rather than uploaded or copy and pasted it, then it's going to take about twice as long to get it posted. Some stories will take quite some time to get posted due to content. If you've written a story that's on the borderline of Literotica's guidelines, it can take longer for the editor to post it. Illustrated and Audio stories will always take extra time.

It's been weeks and my story still hasn't been posted. What's wrong?

The culprit is usually that, for some reason, you didn't press the submit button. If you'll look on the view submission page you may see that the story is "in preview - needs to be submitted". This means that the story hasn't made it to the editor's list. You should click on the blue in preview link, scroll down to the bottom, and click "submit".

The other, less common problem, is that every time you open the story by clicking "pending" and then press "submit", you are putting the story at the end of the editor's list of stories to be approved. If you do this once a day, the editor will never get to your story. Unless you need to edit a pending story, don't open it up!

What kind of HTML should I stick in? I want to make it as easy for the editor as possible.

The only HTML you are permitted to use is the no break space character, italics, bold face, and center. This special formatting is reserved for emphasis, not to make your text look different from anyone else's. You can find an italics essay in Lit's Writer's Resources section to help you.

The Resources Lit has available for you

Writer's Resources
Story and Poem submission guidelines
Volunteer Editor's Program
Frequently Asked Questions
Free email service
Live chat
Bulletin Board

I'm still lost

If you still have specific questions, there are three ways to get them answered. You can post a reply in this thread, start a thread and ask a question--which isn't such a bad idea since you're probably not the only one wondering--or you can press the PM button below this post and ask me.
 
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