If you are having a lengthy delay in publishing, please add the name of your story and when submitted here.

[Saakael]

Personally, I’ve ended up moving to other sites — more out of necessity than choice.

I have several stories that have been pending since late September, with no news or feedback from the moderation team.

I’ve come to accept that my stories probably won’t ever be published here, and that the ones I’ve already started will likely never see their conclusions released.

Even if my stories were to be approved tomorrow, I’m not sure I’d continue investing time on this site, given the unpredictable validation delays and lack of communication.

So for now, I’m posting on DeviantArt, Wrist, LushStories, and AO3.

 

[JSWamp]

Personally, I’ve ended up moving to other sites — more out of necessity than choice.

I have several stories that have been pending since late September, with no news or feedback from the moderation team.

I’ve come to accept that my stories probably won’t ever be published here, and that the ones I’ve already started will likely never see their conclusions released.

Even if my stories were to be approved tomorrow, I’m not sure I’d continue investing time on this site, given the unpredictable validation delays and lack of communication.

So for now, I’m posting on DeviantArt, Wrist, LushStories, and AO3.

I am also posting on other websites. The first part of my short story was published on LushStories in like 7-8 days after submission. I expect the second part to be published this week.

 

[cw5523729]

I wonder what the longest period of pending has been that a story actually got approved?

 

[SugarStorm]

I wonder what the longest period of pending has been that a story actually got approved?

Got you covered.

@Laurel or @Manu, do you know?

 

[cw5523729]

Got you covered.

@Laurel or @Manu, do you know?

View attachment 2575385

 

[Dark_Logan_]

 

[Silas_Noct]

My story "Debt - Scene 4: Reckoning" was submitted on October 16, 2025 and was still pending as of today. I deleted it and resubmitted it with the simple title "Reckoning". I hope this will help.

I also had submitted edited versions of my first 3 stories, titled "The Negotiation," "The Conspiracy," and "Perseverance," using all the guidelines found on Literotica's FAQ pages. I submitted those back on September 29th, 2025 and were also still pending as of today. I have simply deleted those and will attempt to re-submit those one at a time after "Reckoning" is published.

I had also submitted a bug report per the instructions in this thread. I received no response.

Maybe I stuffed the queue with too many stories at once?

 

[SoCalAshley]

No one other than Laurel or Manu knows why stories are stuck in pending hell. Until either of them chooses to tell us, all we can do is speculate.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Maybe I stuffed the queue with too many stories at once?

Highly unlikely.

 

[MindSketch]

Just going to add that I have five chapters to be published still in queue. I typically post a chapter a week, so that means the earliest chapter in my queue has been there for over a month.

Love of Money: Book 2
Chapters 23 - 27

 

[EmilyMiller]

Just going to add that I have five chapters to be published still in queue. I typically post a chapter a week, so that means the earliest chapter in my queue has been there for over a month.

Love of Money: Book 2
Chapters 23 - 27

Delete and resubmit

 

[MindSketch]

Delete and resubmit

Does that really work? I've run into this problem before and did that, but it still took weeks.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Does that really work? I've run into this problem before and did that, but it still took weeks.

It’s far from guaranteed, but it has worked for some (me included).

 

[jsmiam]

Question on this topic:

Although a few pop up here and there, aren’t there far fewer “AI rejection” posts than there used to be?

And hasn’t the reduction in these posts roughly coincided with the “pending hell” problem getting worse?

I acknowledge that this observation doesn’t necessarily coincide with why resubmitting works for quite a few people.

But it still doesn’t mean the observation is inaccurate. Anyone else notice the phenomenon? Just askin.

 

[CalBishForNow]

So for now, I’m posting on DeviantArt, Wrist, LushStories, and AO3.

How do those work for you? What kind of stuff are you publishing there?

This thread overall isn't relevant to me, luckily, but I've been wondering about other sites for other reasons. Unfortunately I'd be going into them completely blind.

 

[Saakael]

How do those work for you? What kind of stuff are you publishing there?

This thread overall isn't relevant to me, luckily, but I've been wondering about other sites for other reasons. Unfortunately I'd be going into them completely blind.

I publish BDSM/bondage stories there without explicit sex scenes.

If your content contains explicit sex, forget about DeviantArt — that kind of content is prohibited there.

However, if you post stories like mine, here’s what I can tell you:

1. It’s hard and slow to get noticed (not always many views, comments, or favorites), but for me, it’s starting to work.
2. It’s a site mostly focused on images.

Wrist is great, but it’s a small community. People are super nice there, but you won’t get hundreds of views like on Literotica.

Lushstories feels a lot like Literotica to me, but with fewer members.

Worth noting: they rejected one of my stories because it didn’t have enough sex.

 

[SoCalAshley]

Anyone else notice the phenomenon? Just askin.

I definitely have, and it makes sense if the reason that there are far fewer “AI rejections” is because instead of the story being rejected, it is sitting in a pending stage waiting to be manually reviewed.

 

[iwatchus]

I agree that it seems likely that the pendings are largely manual reviews that stopped happening in a timely manner.

 

[DEFCOM5]

something weird is happening. I posted a story at 11 AM and by 3:30 PM it was approved to be published.
I have only 13 stories to my name so I am not on any kind of white list. The category is R/NC so I expect a high level of scrutiny.
The most likely explanation is that the writing is so bad that it is obvious it is not AI.

 

[cw5523729]

The most likely explanation is that the writing is so bad that it is obvious it is not AI.

Nice going. Now everyone is going to start suggesting "Did you try making your writing much worse before you resubmitted?"

 

[AwkwardlySet]

something weird is happening. I posted a story at 11 AM and by 3:30 PM it was approved to be published.
I have only 13 stories to my name so I am not on any kind of white list.

You obviously are. Thank you for reporting it. It can help us figure out how it works, since it's unlikely Laurel will ever say a word about it.

The most logical assumption is that it has something to do with how many approved submissions you've had lately.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The most likely explanation is that the writing is so bad that it is obvious it is not AI

This is a common misconception. AI writes crap too. Ungrammatical, full of non-sequiturs. This isn’t surprising as it’s only regurgitating what humans have written.

 

[JSWamp]

something weird is happening. I posted a story at 11 AM and by 3:30 PM it was approved to be published.
I have only 13 stories to my name so I am not on any kind of white list. The category is R/NC so I expect a high level of scrutiny.
The most likely explanation is that the writing is so bad that it is obvious it is not AI.

How long did it take to your first story to be published? I'm just asking because I have both my first stories in the pending hell since august now.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Maybe I stuffed the queue with too many stories at once?

No.

A sensible publishing strategy if you have a long story that is complete, is to submit all chapters at the same time, with a Note to the Editor what you've done. Laurel will review all at once, and set a release clock running for each chapter (usually 24 hours apart, unless you explicitly ask for longer).

Submitting several stories within a short period isn't going to cause problems, because each one has its own place in the queue with many other submissions in between. There's nothing joining them together from a technical point of view.

Constantly pulling them back and fixing stuff though, that's on authors being in too big a rush and not submitting the best possible copy they can, first time.

That's a common theme in these threads, which might be a factor in delay - depends how far down the conveyor belt the story has got. Your story might be a minute away from going to New when you pull it back, in which case the delay is on you, not the site.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I agree that it seems likely that the pendings are largely manual reviews that stopped happening in a timely manner.

My observation is that the time of year had something to do with it.

I've been here a decade, and I reckon every year in the period between Thanksgiving and Halloween, there's always been a slower throughput cycle. The difference this year is that a few people made more noise about it, which fuelled a bigger go-round of speculation.

I'm not convinced it was really that much different than previous years, but that might just be me, cruising merrily down the centre lane watching the pile ups on each side. I didn't submit much these last few months, but much to the disgust of the predictable commentators, they all went through in the usual time.