How long should my story be 'pending' before I contact somebody?

[RichardPercival]

Every time I submit a story I have to ask this question eventually, so for future reference, what's a good benchmark for when I should contact somebody regarding my story?

Should I wait 10 days before contacting someone? 2 weeks? 20 days? A month?

It says on the FAQ that the review process should take 3-7 days, and another part on the FAQ says: 'If it's been more than a week and your story still has not been posted, you may want to check the following:' I checked what it says and everything on my end is in order.

However, another part of the FAQ says: 'If we receive a lot of submissions, it may take slightly longer than usual.'

That in mind, I don't want to be a jerk and pester people about my story... but this is ridiculous. My current story has been pending for 14 days, my last story was pending for around 22 days before I contacted someone, my story before that was pending for about 17 days before I contacted someone, and so on and so on.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Every time I submit a story I have to ask this question eventually, so for future reference, what's a good benchmark for when I should contact somebody regarding my story?

Should I wait 10 days before contacting someone? 2 weeks? 20 days? A month?

It says on the FAQ that the review process should take 3-7 days, and another part on the FAQ says: 'If it's been more than a week and your story still has not been posted, you may want to check the following:' I checked what it says and everything on my end is in order.

However, another part of the FAQ says: 'If we receive a lot of submissions, it may take slightly longer than usual.'

That in mind, I don't want to be a jerk and pester people about my story... but this is ridiculous. My current story has been pending for 14 days, my last story was pending for around 22 days before I contacted someone, my story before that was pending for about 17 days before I contacted someone, and so on and so on.

Laurel does all that shit by herself, that alloted time frame is about as fast as it may happen, but it's nothing to hope for. There's no telling how many submissions she goes through. Think of it as a near infinite backlong. Just set it and forget it. It'll be posted before you know it... or declined and in need of an edit. She does so much shit with this site, it makes me wonder sometime what Manu does. They are the sole two admin/mods. Seriously... she'll get to it. She won't forget.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Every time I submit a story I have to ask this question eventually, so for future reference, what's a good benchmark for when I should contact somebody regarding my story?

Should I wait 10 days before contacting someone? 2 weeks? 20 days? A month?

It says on the FAQ that the review process should take 3-7 days, and another part on the FAQ says: 'If it's been more than a week and your story still has not been posted, you may want to check the following:' I checked what it says and everything on my end is in order.

However, another part of the FAQ says: 'If we receive a lot of submissions, it may take slightly longer than usual.'

That in mind, I don't want to be a jerk and pester people about my story... but this is ridiculous. My current story has been pending for 14 days, my last story was pending for around 22 days before I contacted someone, my story before that was pending for about 17 days before I contacted someone, and so on and so on.

Delays beyond a week are unusual, 14 days or 22 days means it's fallen between cracks.

For established writers it's typically 2-3 days, for newbs typically 5-8.

I'd send a polite PM to Laurel asking if it's got lost. She most likely won't respond, but your story will either go live or be returned for a content or editorial fix.

 

[RejectReality]

Pretty sure this was a double post. The exact same post started another thread the same day, and the other one picked up answers.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Pretty sure this was a double post. The exact same post started another thread the same day, and the other one picked up answers.

Yes. The OP is forum hopping - perhaps hoping for different answers .

 

[MetaBob]

Something weird

Generally, my submissions get marked as approved in about 14 hours, and posted 14-18 hours after that. These turnarounds may reflect the time of day and week that I submit. Yesterday I submitted a chapter from two different stories in two different categories (one Romance, the other BDSM), which is unusual for me. One (Flightback chapter 2) was approved in the usual way (so should be posted in another 12-16 hours), while the other (Senioritis chapter 8) was marked as having been edited at a time I was actually asleep, and has not yet been indicated as approved. Is there some site policy to handle multiple submissions by an author? Perhaps to stagger them so only one gets posted per day?

 

[MetaBob]

Yesterday I submitted a chapter from two different stories in two different categories (one Romance, the other BDSM), which is unusual for me. One (Flightback chapter 2) was approved in the usual way (so should be posted in another 12-16 hours), while the other (Senioritis chapter 8) was marked as having been edited at a time I was actually asleep, and has not yet been indicated as approved. Is there some site policy to handle multiple submissions by an author? Perhaps to stagger them so only one gets posted per day?

Sure enough, the new chapter of Flightback was posted as scheduled, and the new chapter of Senioritis is now scheduled for posting in another 9-12 hours. So maybe there is a site policy against posting two things by one author within 24 hours.

The oddest thing for me is that the piece that got posted first was submitted 2-3 hours *after* the piece that hasn't been posted yet. It's almost like Laurel posted the piece she liked better first.

For the record, I like it better, too. Though now that I see it posted I wish I'd edited it more, but too many people told me they liked chapter 1 so I wheeled chapter 2 out earlier than I'd planned. Ah well, lesson (re-)learned.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Is there some site policy to handle multiple submissions by an author? Perhaps to stagger them so only one gets posted per day?

Yes. If you submit multiple chapters together, Laurel will set a 24 hour gap between releases.

Oh - but you're asking about multiple releases, same day, different categories. Don't know about that. I'm not prolific enough that that scenario has ever arisen.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Yes. If you submit multiple chapters together, Laurel will set a 24 hour gap between releases.

Oh - but you're asking about multiple releases, same day, different categories. Don't know about that. I'm not prolific enough that that scenario has ever arisen.

I submitted four stories in four different categories on the same day. They all published on the same day, too. But maybe that was a fluke?

 

[JaxRhapsody]

I submitted four stories in four different categories on the same day. They all published on the same day, too. But maybe that was a fluke?

Maybe. The story I submitted on the ninth was rejected the next day. I didn't find out until a few days ago, fixed it and it's still pending.

 

[Javahead]

I submitted four stories in four different categories on the same day. They all published on the same day, too. But maybe that was a fluke?

I’m guessing that’s the difference between multiple chapters and multiple stories. When I submitted all eight chapters of my last story on the same day Laurel posted them at a rate of one per day.

 

[EvelynEden]

Ditto

Sure enough, the new chapter of Flightback was posted as scheduled, and the new chapter of Senioritis is now scheduled for posting in another 9-12 hours. So maybe there is a site policy against posting two things by one author within 24 hours.

The oddest thing for me is that the piece that got posted first was submitted 2-3 hours *after* the piece that hasn't been posted yet. It's almost like Laurel posted the piece she liked better first.

For the record, I like it better, too. Though now that I see it posted I wish I'd edited it more, but too many people told me they liked chapter 1 so I wheeled chapter 2 out earlier than I'd planned. Ah well, lesson (re-)learned.

I am actually dealing with something similar strangely- I posted a few stories within the span of a few days (probably an asshole move knowing now that one soul does the entire approval process, oops)

But, as they have slowly been approved one by one, I noticed that the couple I have in the same category have yet to be approved, whereas a story I only wrote and sent to be published a few days ago (I've only come back to this site recently and went a little crazy with a few stories) in a completely different and let's say 'less controversial' category, was approved just recently.

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this and whether there's is a particular reason? I assumed everything was in a cue and gets sorted in order. interesting.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this and whether there's is a particular reason? I assumed everything was in a cue and gets sorted in order. interesting.

I'm pretty sure Laurel tries to keep a steady feed into the various categories, so holds some stories back in some busy categories, posts them faster in others. There's a bit more to it than "first in, first out" from what I can figure out.