Have the underage guidelines been tightened?

[sr71plt]

Selena has never dealt with incest or the other of the big three.

EXCUSE ME!?! Selena's incest books were part of the original Amazon dumping incident. She rewrote several of them to get them relisted.

You really shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about. Makes you look really, really silly.

 

[lovecraft68]

And although you love to speculate on why my writing is doing what it is, I won't speculate on why Smashwords and other distributors haven't deactivated whatever you have published.

because there is no need to deactivate anything, SW announced they were going back to what they were doing prior to the scare.

I'm going to go further and bring up that when R.Richard was whining about his incest work being pulled I replied that my stuff and many others were still up and selling so could he elaborate, he never replied, because he is full of shit.

Or, maybe because his idea of a cover is big white piece of paper with the word Incest in huge block letters, they might have not wanted to be so damn obvious while they were trying to work things out.

Someone and it may have been you made a remark about authors bringing some of this down on themselves especially on Amazon.

Putting up titles like "Mommy come do me" or my personal favorite "Step Mother-fucker(still for sale there) there is something called common sense. Even though SW will allow incest it does not have to be screamed from the roof top.

 

[lovecraft68]

EXCUSE ME!?! Selena's incest books were part of the original Amazon dumping incident. She rewrote several of them to get them relisted.

You really shouldn't talk about things you know nothing about. Makes you look really, really silly.

She is writing step incest now. If she was into incest it was before me.

For the record she could still be selling incest on her own site and decided to put the tail between her legs as all the others are doing. Maybe it was not worth it for her.

That's why SW fought the hardest against this. Coker had the most to lose because he believes in being able to publish whatever people want to and there is a market for it. He is making money off of the incest titles because no one wants to touch it.

And again, it is amazing that Amazon tossed away the 30% per sale they were making on thousands of incest sales to keep a percentage of a percentage pf people who spend little to no money on their site happy.

But Selena had her hair up in a hurry about BDSM though, as that is a significant seller. And let me remind you again how she used the word censorship while you were whimpering here that it was not.

But her, and others, use of that word was what got it all straightened out so lily white spineless fools like you can continue to make some money.

I still think you should have called her and told her how wrong she was, what a fool she was, it would have been a fun conversation to listen to.

"Yes ma'am, sorry ma'am, please let me keep paying you to let me stay, yes thank you ma'am, what? call you Mistress? Yes Mistress.

 

[sr71plt]

She is writing step incest now. If she was into incest it was before me.

Yes, the point is that you aren't shy about making false assumptions about what happened "before" you--or about what's really happening in a world you're just sitting on the periphery of.

You're as full of it as R. Richard is.

 

[Darkniciad]

I think the keys are here:

“No. No good at all. Then there wouldn’t be any sex. We won’t be able to hold the reader’s interest if there isn’t any sex.”

Even though the character isn't involved in the sex, you show several times that she's aware of it. Because she appears so young, that's one place you're running afoul of it.

The other biggie, I believe, is that she's still there with nekkidness present, even if it's only for a second or two, and her last line is an acknowledgement that she knows what's about to happen ( back to point #1 again )

Possibly. Here's a link to the story if anyone's interested.

http://manyeyedhydra.blogspot.com/2012/03/brand-new-manyeyedhydra-story-crlan.html

I know it's iffy protocol to link a story that's been rejected, but I'm curious to know where I might have fallen foul of the rules. I definitely don't want to be writing stories that are seen as underage!

It's also the tentacle story I mentioned I was working on a while back.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

I think the keys are here:

Even though the character isn't involved in the sex, you show several times that she's aware of it. Because she appears so young, that's one place you're running afoul of it.

The other biggie, I believe, is that she's still there with nekkidness present, even if it's only for a second or two, and her last line is an acknowledgement that she knows what's about to happen ( back to point #1 again )

Could be. It was the only point where I thought there might be a problem - possibly the part when she handles a beaker of semen as well.

Normally, I'd have thought that was okay. It's really clear from the scene it isn't a child, but I guess they've had to tighten up a little.

 

[Darkniciad]

Considering the new, specific rejection text, I'd say so. That would have always been dancing on the line, though.

I think you'd lose too much of the character sanitizing it for Lit approval, though. You might be able to pop her out before the bare breasts and lose a line here or there, but it's the overall fact that she knows what's going on that is the problem, and I think that's too critical to the character.

There are some stories that you just can't make fit the guidelines.

 

[jdnunyer]

FWIW, I just had a few submissions accepted in which there are underage characters. These character do not engage in or witness any sexual activity until later, after they've turned eighteen. So I either I squeaked by the new standard, or it has not actually changed.

 

[sr71plt]

Good to know. Thanks for posting.

 

[Laurel]

Hi writers!

For clarification and future reference: we do allow characters under the age of 18 in stories. What we don't allow are stories in which characters under the age of 18 are involved in sexual situations. This includes as voyeurs, as the object of a voyeur, masturbation, having sexual thoughts, and so on.

We do allow references to past activity in stories so long as it is not explicit. For example, an adult character referencing his or her history - "I lost my virginity when I was 15" - is fine. Explicit and/or salacious details are not.

These are not new rules nor have our content rules changed in many years.

As far as things slipping through: one thing to realize is that the stories are not approved by a robot or script. They are approved by human eyes, which tire easily as I age. Every story must be formatted; tags, title, and description checked; and skimmed for content issues. The daily update takes hours. If I could find a way to do all this properly with a script, I would. But in the last 12+ years, the only way to do things right is to do it by hand, so to speak.

Mistakes happen. The site has been on a huge growth streak in the past year, with readership & unique visitors up nearly 20%. This means a corresponding growth in submissions. We want to post stories to the site as quickly as possible for you authors. We also want to make sure that the updates are as top-quality as they can be - with a minimum of formatting errors and no forbidden content inadvertently posted. Thorough checking of stories and timely posting is a balance we will continue to work to get right.

I'd like to be able to read every story through, but I can't. Reading 100+ stories/novels a night - much less formatting, tagging, etc. - is just not possible. So, if while skimming I see something that sends up a red flag and further reading doesn't clarify things, I often send it back to the author. If I stopped and read through each novel we receive to check on whether an underage character is sexually active at any point, I would be even further behind than I already am.

When a story is sent back to you for any reason, this is not a final rejection and it is not meant to be taken personally. This just means we have issues or questions. You are free to resubmit either with corrections - or, if you think we're wrong, an explanation of why we're wrong in the NOTES field.

If you believe your story was rejected in error, please open the submission, respond to the rejection in the NOTES field of the submission, and hit SUBMIT. Please do not add the word EDITED to the title, as that denotes someone editing an already approved story. Since we process all edits after the new stories are posted, adding the word EDITED to a title will cause a delay in the posting of your new story. If you are submitting an edit of a rejected story, simply open the rejected form, make the changes in that form, and hit SUBMIT. Do not start a new submission.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me anytime. PMs are faster than emails.

Thanks everybody, especially those who let me know about this thread - and have a great weekend!

 

[TxRad]

Thank you for taking the time to answer this thread.

And thank you for all your hard work. We're an unappreciative bunch ever so often... Well.. most of the time. It's an ego thing.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Thank you for taking the time to answer this thread.

And thank you for all your hard work. We're an unappreciative bunch ever so often... Well.. most of the time. It's an ego thing.

Dear Reader

I cant believe TEX is first in the ass kissers line! Wait! Yes I can.

 

[TxRad]

JBJ, Maybe you'll be first in the troll line going out the door. One can only hope.

 

[lovecraft68]

JBJ, Maybe you'll be first in the troll line going out the door. One can only hope.

Yeah, but Laurel likes JBJ, his submissions are really easy to check. Oh, wait that's cause he doesn't have any.

As for PM'ing Laurel, not as easy as it sounds she is most likely as behind on the Pm's as they get on the stories at times

and if scummies is still here JBJ always will be as well.

 

[TxRad]

Yeah, but Laurel likes JBJ, his submissions are really easy to check. Oh, wait that's cause he doesn't have any.

As for PM'ing Laurel, not as easy as it sounds she is most likely as behind on the Pm's as they get on the stories at times

and if scummies is still here JBJ always will be as well.

There are only so many hours in a day.

With only two people running a site this size, I'm surprised as much gets done as fast as it does.

 

[lovecraft68]

There are only so many hours in a day.

With only two people running a site this size, I'm surprised as much gets done as fast as it does.

So in her post she says she looks at everything. Why are there people here who insist that "bots" go through the stories?

 

[TxRad]

So in her post she says she looks at everything. Why are there people here who insist that "bots" go through the stories?

Because no one (Laurel) has ever said any different until now.

It was assumed since it was cut and paste that some form of reader was used.

 

[lovecraft68]

Because no one (Laurel) has ever said any different until now.

So the bots have been an urban legend all along!

 

[TxRad]

So the bots have been an urban legend all along!

It would appear so.

 

[Darkniciad]

Laurel told me this years ago, and I've even relayed it to a person or two here who talks about bots.

I just gave up trying to stem the tide of people who refused to believe that one person could or even would try to approve that many stories in a night. It's a confirmation of everything I've been saying all this time about rejections that make people scratch their heads and stories that slip through the cracks as well

And in no time, we'll be right back to square one, as if this clarification never appeared, most likely *laugh*

 

[lovecraft68]

Laurel told me this years ago, and I've even relayed it to a person or two here who talks about bots.

I just gave up trying to stem the tide of people who refused to believe that one person could or even would try to approve that many stories in a night. It's a confirmation of everything I've been saying all this time about rejections that make people scratch their heads and stories that slip through the cracks as well

And in no time, we'll be right back to square one, as if this clarification never appeared, most likely *laugh*

One would think that the site makes enough money to hire another set of eyes.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yeah, but Laurel likes JBJ, his submissions are really easy to check. Oh, wait that's cause he doesn't have any.

As for PM'ing Laurel, not as easy as it sounds she is most likely as behind on the Pm's as they get on the stories at times

and if scummies is still here JBJ always will be as well.

None you know of, darling. I feel that you'll appreciate them a lot more if I dip them in KY and stick them up your ass. But youre right, Laurel prolly likes how I spare her more crap to read.

 

[lovecraft68]

None you know of, darling. I feel that you'll appreciate them a lot more if I dip them in KY and stick them up your ass.

You want to stick something up my ass?

I always knew you were queer JB, but didn't think you would be so blatant about it.

 

[soflabbwlvr]

As for PM'ing Laurel, not as easy as it sounds she is most likely as behind on the Pm's as they get on the stories at times

That hasn't been my experience. I have messaged her twice in the past two years with story-related questions (including a question about underage characters). Once she answered in 24 hours, the other in 30 minutes. If your question is pertinent and your tone is polite, you will most likely get a prompt response.

 

[sr71plt]

It would have been comforting to hear from her what's causing those preposting views and whether it signifies anything. We're sort of speculating on that too in response to frequent questions on the forum about them.