Advised When Rejected? Noob Question.

[Hypocrites]

I just submitted my first story here. For a couple days the "Still in moderation" error. Now it says "Error 404 - This work is unavailable". Is that a rejection? Will the moderators provide reasons and or correctible points? Is the error 404 from the previous status, "normal"? I believe I was very careful to comply with the rules so I'm wondering if it's a rejection, normal or an error requiring resubmission.

I appreciate any help and hand holding,
Hypocrites (Hip'-pock-rih-teez)

 

[AlinaX]

Never seen that before.

 

[AlinaX]

Still in moderation? Do you mean Pending?

 

[burgwad]

That 404 error is typical for stories that are pending and just a day or two from publishing. If you check your “Pending” works, it should have a status indicator and, ideally, a date on the piece in question.

And to answer your other question: if your work is ever rejected, it will appear under your “Sent Back” works along with a brief note stating why (do not expect much/any detail), at which point the rejected submission can be reverted to a “Draft” and resubmitted with the necessary revisions.

 

[Hypocrites]

Still in moderation? Do you mean Pending?

The error was a small banner across the top of a blank white page. I believe "pending" was in there. Something like "Still pending moderator approval. My short hand was "Still in moderation". I'm old and unfortunately don't remember the exact phrasing and didn't see a reason to document it.

 

[Hypocrites]

That 404 error is typical for stories that are pending and just a day or two from publishing. If you check your “Pending” works, it should have a status indicator and, ideally, a date on the piece in question.

And to answer your other question: if your work is ever rejected, it will appear under your “Sent Back” works along with a brief note stating why (do not expect much/any detail), at which point the rejected submission can be reverted to a “Draft” and resubmitted with the necessary revisions.

Excellent. Thank you so very much.

 

[RejectReality]

Sounds like you're directly viewing the story page itself, and it's been approved to go live on a certain date. Check right here.

https://www.literotica.com/my/#/works/stories/pending?page=1

That's the pending folder where you'll see the indicators folks are talking about and the date it will go live. ( Usually a little before midnight PST )

 

[Hypocrites]

Sounds like you're directly viewing the story page itself, and it's been approved to go live on a certain date. Check right here.

https://www.literotica.com/my/#/works/stories/pending?page=1

That's the pending folder where you'll see the indicators folks are talking about and the date it will go live. ( Usually a little before midnight PST )

Aha! It shows 04/13/2025 as published so I guess that's when it drops. Thank you for the education!

 

[RejectReality]

Aha! It shows 04/13/2025 as published so I guess that's when it drops. Thank you for the education!

No problem

If you look near the top of that page, you'll see little squares that say Published, Drafts, Pending, and Sent Back. Those are essentially tabs, and clicking them will cycle between said folders. So if something ever does get sent back ( rejected ) you can go to that folder and click the submission to see a note saying why it was rejected. Or, if you accidentally click the "Save to Draft" button instead of "Publish", you can go to the drafts folder, click the submission, preview, and then click the publish to get it into the submissions queue.

Even farther above that are more tabs for other kinds of submissions. Audio, Artwork, etc.

And, of course, you've got the menu bar on the left, which is worth exploring.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Sounds like it worked itself out. Just for clarification, a 404 error is a system error returned when the address, in this case the file location for your story, can’t be found. As someone else noted, most likely cause is that the story just got moved and the server you hit hadn’t gotten the update yet.

If you continue to get that error over time, absolutely let Laurel and Manu k ow through a DM as it could be a server issue.

 

[SerenaSteeleMonroe]

I'm so glad I found this thread. I just finished my first story for here, and this answered a few questions I'm sure I'd be asking if I hadn't found this.

 

[ElectricBlue]

And to answer your other question: if your work is ever rejected, it will appear under your “Sent Back” works along with a brief note stating why (do not expect much/any detail), at which point the rejected submission can be reverted to a “Draft” and resubmitted with the necessary revisions.

@Hypocrites @SerenaSteeleMonroe

There's a set of generic rejection notices, nearly all couched as a set of questions, but rarely anything specific to your story. Typically:

- under-age content
- non-con without eventual satisfaction for the victim
- overt political or religious content
- racist content
- grammar and punctuation
- formatting
- suspected AI
- celebrity content where there's non-con
- fan fic where the original cohort was under eighteen

Others which I can't recall right now, but those are the main ones, with repeated threads with queries being raised by new authors. Usually someone can help you sort stuff out - nearly everyone in the AH has had stories rejected for something.

 

[Hypocrites]

Sounds like it worked itself out. Just for clarification, a 404 error is a system error returned when the address, in this case the file location for your story, can’t be found. As someone else noted, most likely cause is that the story just got moved and the server you hit hadn’t gotten the update yet.

If you continue to get that error over time, absolutely let Laurel and Manu k ow through a DM as it could be a server issue.

Yes. I understand what a 404 is but I was unfamiliar with its change from the previous message and didn't know if it had just been scrubbed. You folks are a great community.

 

[Hypocrites]

I'm so glad I found this thread. I just finished my first story for here, and this answered a few questions I'm sure I'd be asking if I hadn't found this.

Fantastic! Looking forward to reading what you wrote. And I'm glad I'm not the only noob lost in the woods hee.

 

[SerenaSteeleMonroe]

Fantastic! Looking forward to reading what you wrote. And I'm glad I'm not the only noob lost in the woods hee.

Thanks, I hope it won't be forever for it to go up. I won't put another in the queue until that one is published.

 

[Hypocrites]

Thanks, I hope it won't be forever for it to go up. I won't put another in the queue until that one is published.

My turn around was 48 hours though it's not "online" until midnight I guess.

 

[Hypocrites]

If you look near the top of that page, you'll see little squares that say Published, Drafts, Pending, and Sent Back. Those are essentially tabs, and clicking them will cycle between said folders. So if something ever does get sent back ( rejected ) you can go to that folder and click the submission to see a note saying why it was rejected.

I don't see all of those tabs but I see a couple mmore of them than when I last checked. So maybe they appear as they're "touched" by related functions. I'm on iOS with Brave as my browser.
Thanks for all of that. I think it'll be a minute or two longer as when I checked on the pending story, it had taken me to the composition page with the text from the document and other information I had put in. It was waiting the Preview/Publish button which is okay because it gave me a chance to mitigate the typos, fix some grammar and other stuff.

I'm speculating here, but I think it was "approved" as is and had I done nothing, it would have dropped? So THIS time, it is submitted and is pending.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I don't see all of those tabs but I see a couple mmore of them than when I last checked. So maybe they appear as they're "touched" by related functions. I'm on iOS with Brave as my browser.
Thanks for all of that. I think it'll be a minute or two longer as when I checked on the pending story, it had taken me to the composition page with the text from the document and other information I had put in. It was waiting the Preview/Publish button which is okay because it gave me a chance to mitigate the typos, fix some grammar and other stuff.

I'm speculating here, but I think it was "approved" as is and had I done nothing, it would have dropped? So THIS time, it is submitted and is pending.

You're right. If you change a story before publishing, it goes back into Pending and has to be approved again (because Laurel has to make sure you didn't add forbidden content, e. g. underage sex).

-Annie

 

[RejectReality]

I don't see all of those tabs but I see a couple mmore of them than when I last checked. So maybe they appear as they're "touched" by related functions. I'm on iOS with Brave as my browser.
Thanks for all of that. I think it'll be a minute or two longer as when I checked on the pending story, it had taken me to the composition page with the text from the document and other information I had put in. It was waiting the Preview/Publish button which is okay because it gave me a chance to mitigate the typos, fix some grammar and other stuff.

I'm speculating here, but I think it was "approved" as is and had I done nothing, it would have dropped? So THIS time, it is submitted and is pending.

If it was showing a date in the pending folder as you mentioned earlier, then it would have gone live overnight. I wasn't aware that you could edit an already approved but not yet published story, but if that's what you did, then you'll have to wait for the story to come back through the queue again. If you click the "Publish" button on anything that's in the "Pending" folder, it goes to the back of the line.

If you caught typos and such, then here's a tip or two. When you're editing, change the font face and size to something radically different than what you usually write in. I go from Times New Roman to Verdana and double the font size. This causes the words on the page to be in different positions than you're used to, so errors that you'd previously scanned right over jump out at you. This is also the reason so many catch errors when looking at the preview. The margins, font, position on the screen, etc. are almost always going to be miles away from how you're used to seeing them. So always do a full final read in the preview screen before clicking the Publish button.

Take advantage of text-to-speech as well. Some document processing programs like newer versions of Word can do it, and there are some decent free programs out there. I have a one-time-purchase ( not subscription ) one myself, because it has voices that are a little less robotic than the free ones, and I can switch between a male and female option. Even a robotic voice from a free program can get the job done, though. Your eyes will skip over "Spanked he ass" a dozen times, but when the voice reads it out, that he/her typo hits you like an off-key note in your favorite song.

Finding someone to edit/proofread for you is a huge boon, but that can be a tall order. Finding someone you mesh up with can be even harder. A second set of eyes that have absolutely no prior knowledge of the text will catch things that you would never catch in a dozen editing passes, so it's an avenue worth at least a little exploring.

 

[Hypocrites]

Take advantage of text-to-speech as well. Some document processing programs like newer versions of Word can do it, and there are some decent free programs out there.

Ssssshhhhh. She'll hear.. LOL

Thank you so much. This is all great knowledge. I feel kind of like I found the answers to a test.

 

[LexxRuthless]

If you do get a rejection, it will show up on your Author Dashboard:

 

[Hypocrites]

If you do get a rejection, it will show up on your Author Dashboard:

View attachment 2526692

Thank you.

 

[Hypocrites]

You're right. If you change a story before publishing, it goes back into Pending and has to be approved again (because Laurel has to make sure you didn't add forbidden content, e. g. underage sex).

-Annie

I'm not too worried about the time. I was grateful for the hand holding to know it had been approved. When I went to check on it it opened the editing form. I was grateful for the chance to correct typos and clean up the formatting. So I'm okay with it going through again.

I like that the stories are reviewed by an actual human.

 

[RejectReality]

I'm not too worried about the time. I was grateful for the hand holding to know it had been approved. When I went to check on it it opened the editing form. I was grateful for the chance to correct typos and clean up the formatting. So I'm okay with it going through again.

I like that the stories are reviewed by an actual human.

Reviewed is a strong word. LOL You have Laurel tirelessly scanning literally hundreds of stories every day. Naturally, at that volume, what she's doing is skimming — likely with some assistance from grammar/problematic words highlighting.

 

[Hypocrites]

Yeah, that's a helluva workload. Is "vetted" better? I do not believe I could do that job so better her than me.