How do you decide what category to submit to?

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I have a story, kind of long it's like 18 chapters. and I am unsure what category it should be in. I would say Romance maybe, or just Erotic Coupling, but the main male character is married so he is cheating.I don't want anyone to come into the story, realize he's married and be mad about that.

So what category would you put it in?

 

[lovecraft68]

Because of the marriage I would go with erotic couplings. Romance readers are...well romantics and cheating is a turn off.

Unless you can pull off his current wife as an unsympathetic shrew and the guy a good guy who despite his guilty feelings is falling for another woman who is very good to him. If you are looking at that type of love triangle its possible romance could buy it, but its tricky and you really have to hit it.

So EC.

Of course you could brave loving wives, but seeing its Hubby cheating it will get abused. They find a way to abuse everything there.

 

[GoldenCojones]

I have a story, kind of long it's like 18 chapters. and I am unsure what category it should be in. I would say Romance maybe, or just Erotic Coupling, but the main male character is married so he is cheating.I don't want anyone to come into the story, realize he's married and be mad about that.

So what category would you put it in?

Make his outside love interest his mom or sister and toss it in Incest. You'll get super high scores, tons of reads, and lots of very positive comments.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Depends on what the theme is.

I use NON-EROTIC for stories with historical themes, because the sex is seriously less than the historical re-enactments.

It depends on what drives the story.

Lesbian vampires goes to EROTIC HORROR. Some argue for NON-CONSENT but the tale is about vampires. In one story a vampire influences a teen to amputate his arm with an axe. Its NON-EROTIC because no sex is performed.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

LOL!!! No incest for me. That's a to each their own, but it's not for me thing.

Well he actually loves his wife in a way but they grew apart or something. So I guess I will do EC.

It is actually pretty romantic, I tell my friends I want to write dirty nasty stories and end up with romantic fluff! But yeah he is married so hopeless romantics might not like him.

Thanks!

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

Depends on what the theme is.

I use NON-EROTIC for stories with historical themes, because the sex is seriously less than the historical re-enactments.

It depends on what drives the story.

Lesbian vampires goes to EROTIC HORROR. Some argue for NON-CONSENT but the tale is about vampires. In one story a vampire influences a teen to amputate his arm with an axe. Its NON-EROTIC because no sex is performed.

Well romance...sort of.

Synopsis(which I suck at. I either give too much or too little info)
A woman is flying home for Thanksgiving, misses her flight, ends up staying a week with a guy she meets in the airport. They fall in love.
So what drives the story here, in my opinion, is romance and love. They are just so sweet together.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Well romance...sort of.

Synopsis(which I suck at. I either give too much or too little info)
A woman is flying home for Thanksgiving, misses her flight, ends up staying a week with a guy she meets in the airport. They fall in love.
So what drives the story here, in my opinion, is romance and love. They are just so sweet together.

I agree. Problem solved.

 

[HeyAll]

I never have this problem because I think of the category before I write.

 

[lovecraft68]

I never have this problem because I think of the category before I write.

I have it on occasions because not all my stories fall directly into a category. So then it becomes a case of is there a trump kink or what audience would it appeal to more and squick less.

 

[Haulover]

<Dumb-newbie question>

Would you / should you / could you post different chapters in different categories, based on the character's activities in each chapter?

Or does it make more sense to post the whole thing in the same category?

</Dumb-newbie question>

 

[ElectricBlue]

Depends whether or not the content of the individual chapter is consistent with the overall category, and the likelihood you'll upset readers with firm views as to what is "permissible" in a category. Putting lesbians into gay male, for example, is likely to upset somebody....

If something starts off in something like Erotic Horror or Scence Fiction, I'd leave the whole series in the same category, since you're already in a particular genre.

If in doubt, and the story involves a variety of encounters, Erotic Couplings is a safe choice. If you're totally not sure, put a note into the Editor when you submit, and ask Laurel to categorise.

 

[IvyMarquis]

<Dumb-newbie question>

Would you / should you / could you post different chapters in different categories, based on the character's activities in each chapter?

Or does it make more sense to post the whole thing in the same category?

</Dumb-newbie question>

I've seen people do both. For sure you create a more steady following if you use the same category consistently, HOWEVER, that's only advisable if your story's "main" theme hits that category. I've read stories that have a wide variety of events (group sex, anal, other stuff that would qualify as EC), however the couple was a werewolf(werewolves) and a fairy, so everything got tossed into non human and called it a day.

I've been working on a few chapters with the two characters I've already posted on Lit, and was wondering the same thing; do I pop them into a respective category (One for sure would be voyuerism, probably gonna do a forray into anal. The first piece went in erotic horror and there will eventually be a fic that will be straight non-human)?

Given that the male LI is a werewolf, they're all gonna get tossed in Non-human, as I can see upsetting people by catching them off guard with that tidbit. The Non human people are significantly less likely to give a shit if I experiment. If they were both human, I'd scatter the categories as I saw fit.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

<Dumb-newbie question>

Would you / should you / could you post different chapters in different categories, based on the character's activities in each chapter?

Or does it make more sense to post the whole thing in the same category?

</Dumb-newbie question>

I've done it. When you post chapters, on your author's page, the site lists the stories in order, regardless of category. So yes, feel free to post in a different category if it fits that chapter. A) It alerts reader to the content. B) You might gain an extra reader or two when they see a chapter in their favorite category. A lot of readers read across genres.

 

[GoldenCojones]

You got my vote

Hey Ducky, if you get on the ballet I'll vote for you. Don't get too big a head though, you don't have any competition this time around.

 

[sr71plt]

I posted a five-part series to four radically different categories once ("Tuscan Twilight: https://www.literotica.com/s/tuscan-twilight-ch-01), and four of the five chapters received Green Es. But the whole hook of the series was to have different sexual preferences highlighted in the separate chapters.

In general, I don't think it's a good idea to send readers skipping around to different categories (especially radically different categories) for different chapters, though. Many of them are reading for a particular category and will be put of somewhere down the pike of having invested time and effort into the read (and might then be put off of the author as well).