Combine multiple chapters into one story and (re)submit?

Been scanning the forum and the FAQ. I found the FAQ for resubmitting a single story and replacing it. But cannot find what I want to ask.

I've done a couple of multi-chapter stories, I didn't have time to do the complete ones and the parts I did were stand-alone enough to release and generally people are enjoying them (yeah, I noticed the dropoff in view counts.)

But now that I'm completing them, has anyone taking their multiple chapters and touched it up and (re)submitted it as a single story? For replacing a single story you keep counts/ratings, but that wouldn't work here as 3 submissions become one.

There is nothing in the FAQ on this, nor have I been able to find a discussion in the Forum here (if there has been one, just point me to it!) I'm not committed to doing this, just wondering about whether it's a no-no.

I can see if I modified the pieces significantly to the point the combined work was a 'new' story that would be different. But my thought is to provide the whole existing story in one place (likely minor changes, we all see things we'd like to change but aren't worth resubmitting an edited version.)

Thanks, and Happy New Year!

Leave the existing parts as is, and submit a new, consolidated story with the same title, with the word "complete" added (or something similar), and an opening note saying it's a revision/edit, whatever. You keep your old history, and the consolidated story gets a fresh set of readers.

Or, write a new story. Your best story will be the next one, not the last one. Move on. Put the effort into new work, not rework, I always say.

PennameWombat said:

Been scanning the forum and the FAQ. I found the FAQ for resubmitting a single story and replacing it. But cannot find what I want to ask.

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I don't know what you stand to gain.

I think your procedure would be to take down the original story and resubmit a new story with all chapters combined.

Your story will not be new to Lit, and if Laurel catches what you're doing then the story may go through but it may not be treated as a new story -- there would be no listing in the category hub or the new list -- even if you make what you think are significant changes.

I have done it with some of my chaptered stories e.g.

https://www.literotica.com/s/gulliver-completed

I had to do a minor edit the original parts to make a complete work.

As long as the revised complete version is not a competition entry I don't see a problem.

If it's not in the FAQ, it's probably not something Laurel and Manu deal with often enough to have a "process" for. Assuming Lit uses a typical database on the back-end, what you want to do is certainly possible, but it would probably require a lot of manual effort. There probably isn't an automated way to do it.

So what you'd have to do is send a very detailed and specific request to Laurel. Whether or not she has the time to do it, or even reply, is anyone's guess.

LoquiSordidaAdMe said:

If it's not in the FAQ, it's probably not something Laurel and Manu deal with often enough to have a "process" for. Assuming Lit uses a typical database on the back-end, what you want to do is certainly possible, but it would probably require a lot of manual effort. There probably isn't an automated way to do it.

So what you'd have to do is send a very detailed and specific request to Laurel. Whether or not she has the time to do it, or even reply, is anyone's guess.

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I'll address this point. My question was about *ME* editing my stories into a single submission and submitting *THAT* as a new entry. Laurel and Manu wouldn't do anything different. I'd include an intro that points to the originals. An idea would be to possibly hook new readers and give them a somewhat long single story.

My assumption is the three (in my case) original, existing submissions would simply remain as is. My new submission would be a new entry, as another commenter here said "My Story, The Complete Version" (I'll note that this isn't unknown in the broader publishing world.)

My question isn't about the back-end technology here as about the community's cultural acceptance of such an act.

I'll also thank the commenter "the next story is your best one," yeah, I don't disagree and have as yet spent zero time on this combining existing stories. It just got into my head and I thought I'd ask (it's New Years Day here and my brain isn't in a condition to do strenuous work like actually write

Sorry for the confusion in my original post, I did not explain myself well enough.

I submit chapter stories and I would never ever consider posting any story of mine as a single compete story. There isn’t any gain in it for me and the drawbacks alone are enough to deter me from doing so.
Kant

But to each their own.

PennameWombat said:

Sorry for the confusion in my original post, I did not explain myself well enough.

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Ah. I misread your third paragraph and thought you were trying to retain comments, scores, and reader/vote counts with the resubmission. My mistake.

PennameWombat said:

My question isn't about the back-end technology here as about the community's cultural acceptance of such an act.

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Provided you make it clear in a note what you've done, I personally can't see a problem. I suspect it might happen quite a bit, but who knows.

I'm also not sure that audience memory is infallible either. I occasionally find myself reading a story, thinking, "this feels familiar," then get to the end to find not only did I score it but also left a comment. I blame age, not wisdom.

I just had a "complete" story rejected because there was one already out there with the same name, even though I added "Complete" to the title.

Options were...

1) replace the existing one
2) remove existing and publish the complete version

I chose #2

This was just a week ago.

Reason: I have never posted the completed story here before. I thought was time a gave the readers a Christmas present.