How do you submit your stories?

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

I've always pasted plain text with the basic tags listed as approved like <b> and <i> into the story text submission box, which worked great with the last bit of software I used but I've moved onto something a bit better at working with larger amounts of text/chapters. My new software can export text as html with minimal tags, but each paragraph is still wrapped with <p> and </p>. When I upload and preview this on the story editor it looks exactly like it would using my old method, but I'd rather be safe than sorry and check if anyone else has experience with approvals or rejections for this.

Alternatively, I can upload as a file but I'm aware this extends the approval period (which might be especially since I write longer stories) and I feel safer being able to check the preview to ensure formatting appears correctly. If you have experience of this, I'd love to hear if you've ever had issues.

 

[RejectReality]

Find/Replace all the paragraph tags with nothing after export.

I do this for another site where you can submit as HTML, but my software adds a buttload of extraneous garbage even when I export with the most bare-bones setting. If the paragraph tags are your only issue, it shouldn't take more than a minute to eliminate them.

 

[ScrappyPaperDoodler]

Ah... I've overthought this. My worry was that find and replace would eliminate line breaks, but I see you can add a manual line break in the 'replace' field on Word (Google Docs can't do it without an add-on). So, every </p> would become a break, every <p> would be deleted, and it would look exactly as it did previously. Then it's just a matter of copying and pasting.

That's actually way simpler than my previous workflow.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I upload Word files and in my five years here with 70 stories, have never had a problem with delay other than when I submit in the middle of an event like the 750 word challenge.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I've had glitches eventually every time I've uploaded files .txt .rtf .doc .docx.

The last four years I've only ever copy/pasted into the text box, and I've never had a problem doing that. The longest story was close on 40k words. I got a ten year old Kindle - every time Lit does an upgrade, I lose some backwards compatibility. It's annoying, but so far I've found work-arounds.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I use Word365 on my iPhone. I write plain text and format it with HTML in-line. I paste to the text box and review.

I have seen the crap that Word produces as “formatting” - it may work most of the time, but it’s flaky af.

Emily

 

[BobbyBrandt]

I upload Word files and in my five years here with 70 stories, have never had a problem with delay other than when I submit in the middle of an event like the 750 word challenge.

^^^^
This with my stories for the last ten years.

Most of them average around 50K words so I find the pasting into the text field for submissions and then reviewing/editing there too tedious.

I never experienced any delays in publication due to uploading a file.

 

[TheLobster]

I write in plain text editors and copy/paste the text into the Lit text box. I haven't bothered with formatting yet and prefer to just leave *emphasis* like _this_ as is.

For the story I'm currently finishing, however, I really needed alignment so I just typed the tags manually as I went (along with <i></i> in a few other places).

 

[Cagivagurl]

I have written something like 180 stories and used the file upload every time with no problems
Oops, there have been a couple of issues but they were mine for picking the wrong file...

 

[RejectReality]

I used to upload here by plain .txt file, but it quit working for me years ago. Haven't tried since. Maybe they fixed whatever bug was there. I should really try it again. All it saves me from is opening the document before starting the submission process, but it's a second or three.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I usually write the story in Google Docs, download it as a Word *.doc file, and upload that. I usually have minimal formatting, so that's never been a problem.

For the 750 word stories, it's a straight copy/paste.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I usually blindfold them and make them walk the plank ...

 

[TheLobster]

In BDSM, the story to submits to you!

 

[Dearelliot]

I use word pad, and when I submit my story I find it has no spacing for paragraphs. Pain in the butt! I may next time try transferring it to Libre Office first and then on to Lit.

 

[jehoram]

I usually write the story in Google Docs, download it as a Word *.doc file, and upload that. I usually have minimal formatting, so that's never been a problem.

For the 750 word stories, it's a straight copy/paste.

For me, too, although I write the stories as a straight .txt file, add <> tags where necessary, and see how it comes out in the preview section.

I seldom write stories more than 50 k, which is roughly 10,000 words, and I've never had a problem with the copy/paste method.

 

[HeyAll]

Plain text is best with copy/paste because you can actually see the preview.