A Suggestion for Lit

[The_shadow_rising]

Well hello all

Long-time Lit author here, and I just wanted to write a suggestion for you all that I have submitted to Lit, and wanted to see what other authors thought. I have no idea if you have had this before or if there is another thread about this, nor if it will be taken on board, but I thought it worth suggesting.

I have spoken with some other Lit authors over the past few months, some of which are no longer writing here (which is a great shame), about why many of the old authors have left, and this led to this suggestion.

In brief, having looked at successful video sites such as Twitch and Youtube, and other artistic expression sites such as Patreon, I wanted to suggest that Lit add a couple of new features.

First, the ability to 'subscribe' to favourite authors (similar to the video sites), even if this just emails subscribers to let them know when an author has posted a new story. This would be helpful for both authors and readers to stay in touch and make it easier to know when stories are released.

Second, a 'donation' button - like the 'tip' jar on Twitch, or subscriptions like on Patreon. This would not be necessary for readers to use, and of course stories would remain free and open to all. But this would give readers an option to donate to their favourite authors - and I have had several email me and express their wishes to do this - while also giving authors encouragement to not only post on Lit, but also to post good quality stories. It could be implemented and made clear that readers have no pressure to do so - again, just like on Twitch. This would bring a lot of traffic in authors. I (and other authors I have discussed this with) believe, and that means more readers.

This latter suggestion has increasingly been occurring with authors on other sites, or that sell via Amazon, or that use Paypal or Patreon for their readers. I've always posted on Lit, and have been reading here since the beginning of the millennium, and so I would much rather have a system in use here like this (that has only benefits and no detractions for anyone) and continue posting on Lit, rather than have to find other means to have my work pay off (and I put hours and hours into each story).

Again, these are just suggestions, but I would be interested in knowing what other authors think of this. It certainly would encourage authors to return, in my opinion.

 

[sr71plt]

It's totally useless to make suggestions to the Website administration by forum post. Use the PM system and comment directly to Laurel or Manu. They rarely engage with the forum and they even more rarely pay any attention to any suggestions we make as users.

 

[The_shadow_rising]

The suggestion isn't to the Lit Admin, that has already been sent. I was asking for other authors' opinions

 

[sr71plt]

I've seen little evidence that the Web site cares about any author opinions, so it's just a frustration to even discuss them. They won't even clean up the site that's here, especially areas like nonfunctioning e-mail contact buttons, leaving it to the regulars to guide new users asking for help through a Web site that doesn't deliver what it advertises it offers.

Good luck with the wheels spinning. I'll be busy doing something productive.

 

[HeyAll]

1) Actually, Laurel and Manu (one of the other) had mentioned something about a subscribe button. Personally, I think that's a great idea. Although, I think a minor downside with that is that people will be less likely to click "favorite author" and then add to fav.

Unless there's something I don't know.

2) A donation thing would actually be kind of cool. And just from a curiosity standpoint, I'd be really interested to see how many readers actually bother to donate.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

2) A donation thing would actually be kind of cool. And just from a curiosity standpoint, I'd be really interested to see how many readers actually bother to donate.

We can't even get readers to click on ratings. Donate? Not holding my breath on it being either implemented or successful.

The OP's suggestions are fine, but as noted, change doesn't visit Literotica.

 

[TxRad]

My first thought on the subscribe button is that it will make it very easy for the trolls to find their targets. The main reason I took my new story list out of my sig line. Now the trolls have to hunt the new stories up on their own.

As for donations, it is a good idea but I wouldn't hold my breath from the site's side or the readers. When votes are a norm of 1 in 100 views, readers seem to have other things on their mind.

 

[The_shadow_rising]

Legitimate concerns, on the most part, and I generally agree with some of them.

Whether it is unlikely anyone would donate, though, I think does not matter - the option is there and the comparison of the current system and that unlikely system is only an increase, however slight, in the author's benefit. More importantly though, I have had several readers ask for ways to support their favourite authors with donations - so while the vast majority would likely not donate, and in all likelihood donations would not be significant, I can't see any harm in the option being there and only benefit. Those few who want to donate can, and in a safer way, and authors may receive a little here and there and at least have more of an incentive.

As for the trolls - again, legitimate concern, but there will always be trolls and always ways of dealing with them, mostly by ignoring them. Of course, the current 'rating' system for stories is terribly broken, and methods of dealing with trolls do need to be undertaken by the site, but perhaps ways could be found for that by Lit. 'Block' and denial of anonymous comments could help for some (though not all). Still, may be problematic, but with thought I don't see why this cannot be resolved. Other sites suffer from this also.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Any time money's involved, there are risks. Aside from giving an incentive to try to steal accounts, it also gives people an incentive to rip off other people's stories and post them here.

I agree with other commenters that the income to a good-faith author from a donate button on Lit would probably be tiny. But bad-faith authors don't have to go to the trouble of writing their own stories. Set up a bot that harvests stories from other sites (or even old stories from Literotica), post ten a day under a hundred different fake accounts, collect donations, replace the fakes as they get reported, and hey presto, you're making as much money as a hundred prolific authors for much less effort.

Let's talk YouTube. Some time back, a friend of mine who's an excellent singer posted a video of herself performing a classical piece (we're talking 1800s, well out of copyright). Not long after the video was suspended because somebody else had popped up claiming to be the copyright owner.

Why did they do this? Because they knew YouTube would give my friend three options: you can contest the claim (time-consuming, risk of getting your account deleted if you lose), or you can take the video down, or you can keep it up but play an ad at the beginning... and the "copyright owner" gets revenue from that ad. Small change, but when you're set up to do that in an automated way for thousands or millions of videos, it adds up, and a lot of targets decide it's not worth fighting.

So I can see reasons why Laurel and Manu might not want to open that particular can of worms.

"Follow author", OTOH - yes absolutely.

 

[The_shadow_rising]

All good points again, and definitely worth thinking about if it were to be implemented. That said, the other side of the coin is that many on YouTube do still make the system work. Importantly, the bot on YouTube that scans for copyright is incredibly terrible, as is the appeal system, and so the same problem need not (though of course it still could) be as prolific in this instance. Moreover, having it as a donation rather (like Twitch) rather than an income based on subscribers/likes/viewers would help.

The big problem is, like has been said, the stealing of stories point. This has happened even within Lit, though of course the lure of possible money may increase it. But as donations would be unlikely, that would not be a very lucrative business. More importantly, given that it would be donations/tips rather than a YouTube-style income there would be no money - making really, and the nothing really changes from how the system involving stolen stories is now. It could even be a 'donate to author' rather than donating on stories, and then the issue of donations on stolen stories would not arise (at least legslly).

Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not well versed in law or saying these are not good points or problems - they are absolutely both - but it can be worked around. Especially as many other sites, such as Patreon, do similar things, not to mention people using PayPal for donations on other sites.

 

[sr71plt]

The Web site doesn't keep up with Web site maintenance/cleanup/updating now. The chances it is going to add a donation accounting and payout system is something less than zero without a drastic change in the effort they're willing and able to put it (until they were embarrassed to do so they didn't even notify authors who had won money in Lit. contests, despite, in some cases, not announcing the winners for years).

On the email issue, I post at least one story a week. I wouldn't want a notification email being dump on anyone at that rate. Authors can keep their own notification services better than a Web site that can't even fix it's own e-mail system for the last decade can/is going to add a effort-requiring service for anyone else.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

I think these are both fantastic ideas.

There are drawbacks, of course. But there always are.

The subscribe idea, at the very least, would be helpful, and would turn the "favorite" button into something practical and useful rather than being a simple bookmark or nod of encouragement.

When it comes to money...*shrug* I'm not sure this would be the place to make it no matter what. Profit just isn't in the nature of the site. Still, it would give superfans the options of patronage, which is, I think, very cool.

 

[49greg]

I'm just glad for what there is. Anything else would be nice, but it's pretty great as it is.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

A suggestion for those who want all the bells and whistles...

Go buy a server, software, technical expertise, advertising, etc. and start your own site.

After a year, if you're still in business, come back and let us know how it's going? How deep in debt you are? How long the site lasted? How many visitors asked for the moon to be included? Etc.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm always negative about shit like this. Tough.

 

[SciFurz]

my €0.02

I think a donation button would put the burden on verification and protection of accounts on Literotica. As mentioned before, that would increase the chance of hijacking accounts.

I like the Patreon idea, but what extra incentive can be offered to people donating? I can draw a little and make the covers of the stories I publish on Amazon myself, so a copy without the text could be something, but that would probably be it. Commissions for stories with a particular subject can be requested by the feedback form anyway.

The only thing I can think of is making some stories exclusive to paid ebooks and hope readers will like the ones posted here enough to shell out 99 cents on Amazon for other ones (yes, plug! Buy my ebooks! *grovel*).

Since I've started publishing my humble writings last year (at wordpress.com), I've realised I love writing and would like to give it all away for free, but unless I find a young lady to sponsor me (you girls know where to contact me ;-) ), I have to keep working or monetize somehow via Amazon.

As for the first suggestion, I'm afraid it would only lead to more information overload, unless there's a choice of it being daily, weekly, or monthly.
I've cut down "follows" for sites because I just couldn't keep up with it anymore. Which is also the reason I don't use social networks apart from Twitter (thanks to the message limit).

As much as I like to read what happens in the world, I've got to drain my mind by writing!

 

[Celedriel]

Or you could compete in the brutal real world of Amazon's erotica marketplace. Just an idea.

 

[Hypoxia]

LIT's working model has survived for a geological epoch of internet time, approaching two fucking decades. Older than Google and eBay and NetFlix and iStuff. Consider that. Other online "erotic text" sites have been around longer but with much less audience. The model works. Why break it?

Which is my way of saying to not expect much from LIT restructures. Manu claims to be working on a massive reworking but I bet it'll look pretty much as it does now. Such is life.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

or...

If it ain't broke, why bother fixing it.

or...

If the user really don't need it and it would take a shit load of work to make it work and we don't have time do that kind of shit and only 10 authors and absolutely no readers have asked for...fuck it...we have bigger problems to deal with...like no sleep, not enough time to eat, hell I shit in a bucket next to my desk it's so bad around here...

 

[Manu]

Which is my way of saying to not expect much from LIT restructures. Manu claims to be working on a massive reworking but I bet it'll look pretty much as it does now. Such is life.

The two biggest interface changes in the new version of Lit are the addition of a header (welcome to 2004) and converting the entire site to a responsive design so that it's easier for readers to read - and authors to write - on small screen mobile devices.

We've spent the last few years re-working pretty much everything on the back end of Lit to get ready for these changes (and for future growth in general).

There are going to be a lot of changes to the way the site works, but you are 100% right in guessing that our goal is not to change the site for the sake of change. The new design addresses issues that we know (via years of feedback) are important to readers and writers. But, we don't want to shock longtime visitors to the site who are comfortable with the way it currently works.

There are millions of people who read stories on Literotica every month, and we want to make sure that they remain happy. The same with authors - we do not want to shock you with crazy changes that don't make your life easier.

I have been so deep in the work on the new version of Lit (which we have code named "Lit 5.0") for so long that it's hard for me to guess whether readers and authors will see it as a "massive reworking" or as an obvious evolution. I am very excited to find out what you all will think when you see it.

The first thing that will roll out is the Control Panel. I had hoped it would already be in public BETA, but we are very close now. I'm sure there will be some growing pains when it first rolls out, but that's what BETA is for. We are very hopeful about these changes and how they will benefit the entire Lit community.

Thanks to everyone who makes suggestions, complaints, or any comments at all. Even though I don't reply as often as I would like to during this work, we are always watching and learning from these posts about the future of Lit.

More very soon!

 

[Manu]

Well hello all

Long-time Lit author here, and I just wanted to write a suggestion for you all that I have submitted to Lit, and wanted to see what other authors thought.

First, the ability to 'subscribe' to favourite authors (similar to the video sites), even if this just emails subscribers to let them know when an author has posted a new story. This would be helpful for both authors and readers to stay in touch and make it easier to know when stories are released.

Second, a 'donation' button - like the 'tip' jar on Twitch, or subscriptions like on Patreon.

Thanks for the starting the thread and for the suggestions.

The first suggestion is built into the new system. "Favorite Authors" is being converted to Following/Followers. The new system is backwards compatible so that authors will keep all of their existing Followers (readers who have you on their Favorites list will become your Followers).

If you follow an author, you will be notified when that author publishes a new story. This notification will happen in the header and on your (new) user dashboard. We aren't sure how frequent emails will go out, but it will be some type of digest system. This has been a longtime top feature request and something we are happy finally to be rolling out. Followers/Following (along with ban/block) will also be tied to other features that will be rolled out a bit later (messaging, for example).

As far as adding a link to Patreon on author profiles - it is not in the current version of the new design, but obviously it wouldn't be hard to add. Honestly, this is not a request that we have seen very often from authors. I'm not sure why that is, but I'd be interested to hear from more authors if they think this is an important option. It's not something we're against, but we generally let user feedback play a large part in new feature development. So far, there hasn't been a lot of requests for this.

While some Lit authors may look to sites like Patreon, even more currently look to eBook publishing for income. Our goal for the new system is to help those authors build a large and dedicated following. With the new Followers/Following system, it will be very simple for readers to follow authors. Those readers will then be notified when the author publishes new works. Authors will also have the ability to send news updates to their followers (for example, letting their followers know that they have published a new eBook).

With the number of eBooks published these days, authors who publish with Amazon or elsewhere are finding it increasingly challenging to build an audience for their work. There are millions of people reading stories at Lit every month. Each of those readers is a potential follower/customer for any given Lit author. Our goal with the new system will be to match up readers with authors of interest to them. Once readers find a story/author of interest, we want to turn that reader into a follower and offer tools that will allow the author to build a relationship with that reader.

So, in addition to improving the reading and publishing experience for mobile users, much of our work has been on ways to create a stronger reader/author relationship. While our thoughts have not been on a "tip jar" type system, anything that helps authors connect with readers likely lends itself to that type of system as well.

Again, I would be interested in hearing what other authors think of adding Patreon or some related service.

 

[sr71plt]

If you follow an author, you will be notified when that author publishes a new story. This notification will happen in the header and on your (new) user dashboard. We aren't sure how frequent emails will go out, but it will be some type of digest system. This has been a longtime top feature request and something we are happy finally to be rolling out. Followers/Following (along with ban/block) will also be tied to other features that will be rolled out a bit later (messaging, for example).

Will an author be able to turn this feature off? I post a story at least once a week. I don't want an e-mail on this dumped into my followers' e-mail systems every week--and, I bet, neither do they.

 

[HeyAll]

Thanks again Manu,

I hope we get some sort of advanced notice before these changes come out. Sounds like it could be interesting. Two quick notes.

1) My biggest suggestion has always been the font of the story, and it's size. It's too small and the letters are thin. Any way of making it bigger? Any way of giving readers a choice of their prefered font size?

2) Regarding emailing people with new stories, I have a suggestion. Why not send out a monthly email which contains the new stories from people readers are "following." Otherwise, if you did it for each individual story, readers would get overloaded.

So, for instance, every 1st of the month, I would get an email from Lit with a list of new stories from the people I am following.

If you follow an author, you will be notified when that author publishes a new story. This notification will happen in the header and on your (new) user dashboard. We aren't sure how frequent emails will go out, but it will be some type of digest system. This has been a longtime top feature request and something we are happy finally to be rolling out. Followers/Following (along with ban/block) will also be tied to other features that will be rolled out a bit later (messaging, for example).

 

[Manu]

Will an author be able to turn this feature off? I post a story at least once a week. I don't want an e-mail on this dumped into my followers' e-mail systems every week--and, I bet, neither do they.

We are still re-working the email system, but we share your concern. All large sites have to be careful not to annoy users (even fully opted in users) because email providers are quick to restrict senders these days.

We are considering how frequent email digests should be. It's likely that we will give members the ability to turn off email notifications if they choose.

The main goal right now is to launch a strong on-site notification system. Any time a reader is logged in, he or she will be informed about new stories from followed authors. This system should not annoy users because it only notifies them via the new site header.

 

[sr71plt]

A combined month e-mail on everything posted the previous month by the authors the reader follows would seem to be a good approach, if feasible.

 

[The_shadow_rising]

Thanks for the starting the thread and for the suggestions.

The first suggestion is built into the new system. "Favorite Authors" is being converted to Following/Followers. The new system is backwards compatible so that authors will keep all of their existing Followers (readers who have you on their Favorites list will become your Followers).

If you follow an author, you will be notified when that author publishes a new story. This notification will happen in the header and on your (new) user dashboard. We aren't sure how frequent emails will go out, but it will be some type of digest system. This has been a longtime top feature request and something we are happy finally to be rolling out. Followers/Following (along with ban/block) will also be tied to other features that will be rolled out a bit later (messaging, for example).

As far as adding a link to Patreon on author profiles - it is not in the current version of the new design, but obviously it wouldn't be hard to add. Honestly, this is not a request that we have seen very often from authors. I'm not sure why that is, but I'd be interested to hear from more authors if they think this is an important option. It's not something we're against, but we generally let user feedback play a large part in new feature development. So far, there hasn't been a lot of requests for this.

While some Lit authors may look to sites like Patreon, even more currently look to eBook publishing for income. Our goal for the new system is to help those authors build a large and dedicated following. With the new Followers/Following system, it will be very simple for readers to follow authors. Those readers will then be notified when the author publishes new works. Authors will also have the ability to send news updates to their followers (for example, letting their followers know that they have published a new eBook).

With the number of eBooks published these days, authors who publish with Amazon or elsewhere are finding it increasingly challenging to build an audience for their work. There are millions of people reading stories at Lit every month. Each of those readers is a potential follower/customer for any given Lit author. Our goal with the new system will be to match up readers with authors of interest to them. Once readers find a story/author of interest, we want to turn that reader into a follower and offer tools that will allow the author to build a relationship with that reader.

So, in addition to improving the reading and publishing experience for mobile users, much of our work has been on ways to create a stronger reader/author relationship. While our thoughts have not been on a "tip jar" type system, anything that helps authors connect with readers likely lends itself to that type of system as well.

Again, I would be interested in hearing what other authors think of adding Patreon or some related service.

It all sounds interesting - looking forward to seeing the new update and what readers think about it. Anything that makes it easier than searching through everything is welcome for me, so the 'follow' option sounds great.

Absolutely understand authors who publish on Amazon ebooks, and so on, but personally I like having my stories free for all to read. The option of a 'tip' or Patreon service would enable readers to still get the stories free if they wished (unlike with the ebook option) and still support an author that they really like, again if that is something they wish to do. Of course, that would likely mean it would not be a great way to make a living, but then authors are still free to focus rather on selling ebooks or in writing stories for Lit this way and selling ebooks, etc. Readers wouldn't be forced into having to 'tip' or be a Patron, stories would be free, and authors would have an additional option to their current choices for having a little extra support (and those dedicated fans, however few, could have a means to support authors).

Two other points I thought were good about this. First, having the 'tip'/Patreon thing via Lit means that authors and readers could feel more secure on who they are dealing with. The other thing is that just as a 'tip'/Patron option rather than buying a book means that readers can choose how much they would like to give an author rather than the set ebook price, and also decide to give a tip or become a Patron after (rather than before) they have read the story and know what it, and the author's, quality is.

Again, not knocking anyone who does write and sell ebooks - especially as I may do the same in the future - but as authors could still do this and have this option, it seems like a win-win for the author, the reader, and for Lit. For me personally I have always posted my stories here, and like doing so and reading stories here - so the option to do this through this site seems the best idea for me.

Anyway, thanks for thinking about it, and looking forward to the update.